Azure virtual machine backups

Question

Say I stop/deallocate a virtual machine that was on a routine schedule for daily backups with a retention of 28 days, what happens to those back ups once a vm is stopped/deallocated?

In the event all are removed, is there a way to keep the last known good backup for longer retention period?

Answer 1

Hi Crod-8019,

Yes, the same behavior applies to Azure VMs in stopped/deallocated state.

To add: In the event a VM is in the stopped deallocated state, the backups are retained based on the retention range you selected in the backup policy (e.g. 28 days). Once the retention period is over, only the last successful backup snapshot is preserved as the last known recovery point.
There is also a soft delete feature for Azure VM backups that extends the retention period. Backups in soft delete state are kept for 14 additional days at no extra cost.

Also recommend reviewing the content here for relevant details.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Backups continue to run as per schedule even if the VM is shutdown and it will be retained for 28 days as per retention policy post that all the previous backups will get deleted and the last backup will still exist in the recovery services vault (RSV) as long as the vault is active.

Reference link:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-vm-backup-faq#my-vm-is-shut-down-will-an-on-demand-or-a-scheduled-backup-work

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