is it possible to change the recovery service vault of azure vm without deleting the previous one

Question

is it possible to change the recovery service vault of azure vm without deleting the previous one

Vinoth Kaliaperumal 386

I would like to change the recovery service vault of the virtual machine without affecting the previous recovery service vault as i need those backup data till their retention period.

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-02-21T10:24:56.93+00:00

@Vinoth Kaliaperumal Just wanted to check if the response below helped. If not, please share additional context to the question to help understand the requirement.

If the answer below helped, please click Accept Answer and Yes so that it can help others in the community looking for similar information.

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SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-02-21T10:24:56.93+00:00

@Vinoth Kaliaperumal Just wanted to check if the response below helped. If not, please share additional context to the question to help understand the requirement.

If the answer below helped, please click Accept Answer and Yes so that it can help others in the community looking for similar information.

Answer 1

Alessio Sciuto 46

Hi Vinoth,

it is totally possibile, I have setup a custom procedure to achieve this while keeping the old backup data for the retention period.

This procedure requires a VM migration from the original Resource Group to a temporary one.

These are the steps to follow:

Stop protection and retain backup data (https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-docs/blob/main/articles/backup/backup-azure-manage-vms.md#stop-protection-and-retain-backup-data)
Move the VM to a temporary Resource Group (changing the Resource Group will also change the resource ID, so Azure will recognize the VM as different and unprotected, allowing you to configure protection in the new vault)
Protect the VM in the new vault
Wait the retention period to be fulfilled in the new RSV
Disable the Soft Delete feature and delete the recovery points in the old RSV

Optionally, if you want to go back to the original Resource Group, do the following:

Move the VM to the original Resource Group (to change the resource ID again and allow Azure recognize the VM as unprotected, so you can set up the protection again in the new RSV).
Protect the VM again in the new vault
Wait the retention period to be fulfilled again
Delete the old recovery points from the new RSV and wait for the Soft Delete feature to automatically delete the points after 14 days

Please let me know if the procedure is clear.

Best Regards,

Alessio

Matthew McKenzie 5 Reputation points

2025-05-13T04:53:04+00:00

This is not working for me. When I move back to the original Resource Group it somehow re-associates itself with the old vault. There does not appear to be anything I can do to shake it.
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2025-05-13T10:58:54.3733333+00:00
@Matthew McKenzie A VM can only be backed up to one Recovery Services Vault at a time. If you want to move a VM’s backup to another vault, you must:

Stop protection and delete backup data from the current vault

Re-enable protection using the new vault Ensure you have the necessary RBAC permissions (e.g., Backup Contributor role) to configure backups and manage Recovery Services Vaults.
Matthew McKenzie 5 Reputation points

2025-05-13T21:53:55.0566667+00:00

Current vault stopped, no backup data in any case.
I had to use Disable-AzRecoveryServicesBackupProtection from a command line to detach.

** After which "Business Continuity Center" was to transfer to new RSV. But what If I don't want a new RSV, I just want the current one gone?

(a bit of soft delete toggling may have been required, and in fact maybe a dummy backup to soft delete in any case)

But in between, the Disable-AzRecoveryServicesBackupProtection did not remove the backup attributes from the VM as I would have expected. This SHOULD be as simple as deleting a restore point collection.

RBAC permissions were not an issue at any time.

** Created new backup under new RSV.
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2025-05-14T17:52:41.4066667+00:00

@Matthew McKenzie Stop protection for a VM should work as expected. Only incase of deleting backup items security features like soft delete, always on soft delete comes in picture. If a vault is enabled with soft delete, before deleting backups items, you need to disabled soft delete and then try deleting backup items. Even if shows backup items would remain for 14 days, you can force delete it.

In case of always on soft delete, if you delete backup data, it will remain in soft deleted state for 14 days. Note: Always on soft delete if enabled, cannot disabled. To disable always on soft delete, you need to contact Azure backup technical support team by raising a support ticket.

Hope this clarifies!

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is it possible to change the recovery service vault of azure vm without deleting the previous one

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