Azure Fundamentals · Lesson

Azure Backup Fundamentals

Enable Azure Backup for VMs and Azure Files, configure daily backup schedules and retention policies in a Recovery Services vault, and verify backup jobs.

Why Backup Is Non-Negotiable

Even in the cloud, data can be lost through accidental deletion, ransomware encryption, application bugs, or configuration errors. Cloud providers protect you from hardware failure but not from mistakes in your own account. Azure Backup is Microsoft's native, fully managed backup service that protects VMs, Azure Files shares, SQL databases running on VMs, Azure SQL Databases, and more — with zero infrastructure to manage.

Recovery Services Vault

A Recovery Services vault is the top-level management object for both Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery. It stores backup data, holds backup policies, and provides a single pane of glass for monitoring backup jobs. Each vault is tied to a region — backup data stays in the same region as the vault unless you configure geo-redundant storage. You need at least one vault per region where you have workloads to protect.

# Create a Recovery Services vault
az backup vault create \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --name myRecoveryVault \
  --location eastus

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