Change automated backup settings for Azure SQL Managed Instance

Applies to: Azure SQL Managed Instance

This article provides examples to modify automated backup settings for Azure SQL Managed Instance, such as the short-term retention policy and the backup storage redundancy option that's used for backups. For Azure SQL Database, see Change automated backup settings for Azure SQL Database.

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Change short-term retention policy

You can change the default point-in-time recovery (PITR) backup retention period by using the Azure portal, PowerShell, or the REST API. The following examples illustrate how to change the PITR retention to 28 days.

Warning

If you reduce the current retention period, you lose the ability to restore to points in time older than the new retention period. Backups that are no longer needed to provide PITR within the new retention period are deleted.

If you increase the current retention period, you don't immediately gain the ability to restore to older points in time within the new retention period. You gain that ability over time, as the system starts to retain backups for longer periods.

Note

These APIs will affect only the PITR retention period. If you configured long-term retention (LTR) for your database, it won't be affected. For information about how to change long-term retention periods, see Long-term retention.

To change the PITR backup retention period for active databases by using the Azure portal:

  1. Go to the managed instance with the databases whose retention period you want to change.
  2. Select Backups on the left pane, and then select the Retention policies tab.
  3. Select the databases for which you want to change the PITR backup retention.
  4. Select Configure policies from the action bar.

Screenshot of the Azure portal backup settings to change PITR retention for the managed instance.

Configure backup storage redundancy

Configure backup storage redundancy for SQL Managed Instance by using the Azure portal, the Azure CLI, and Azure PowerShell.

In the Azure portal, during instance creation, the default option for the backup storage redundancy is geo-redundancy. To change it:

  1. Go to the Basics tab and select Configure Managed Instance.

    Screenshot of the pane for configuring backup storage redundancy in the Azure portal for a managed instance.

  2. On the Compute + storage pane, select the option for the type of backup storage redundancy that you want.

    Screenshot of selecting backup storage redundancy in the Azure portal for a managed instance.

  3. Select Apply. For now, this change will be applied only for PITR backups. Long-term retention backups will retain the old storage redundancy type.

The time it takes to perform the backup redundancy change depends on the size of the all the databases within a single managed instance. Changing the backup redundancy will take more time for instances that have large databases. It's possible to combine the backup storage redundancy change with the operation to update the service-level objective (SLO).

Use the Notification pane of the Azure portal to view the status of the change operation.

Screenshot of the status of ongoing operations in the Azure portal.

Next steps