Azure Backup Migrate

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Azure Backup Migrate

Handian Sudianto 7,241

Hello, I want to migrate 2 vm from existing policy to new policy, can we migrate this 2 vm but keeping backup history on existing policy?

Luke MacDonald 21 Reputation points

2023-04-21T14:23:25.11+00:00

SwathiDhanwada-MSFT answer confuses me a bit and I am trying to figure out a similar thing. We have a VM with SQL Server backup policy that is backing up 2 databases. We want to standardize our policy names and schedules and I have created a new policy with the schedule. However the two databases are not listed when I attempt to add them to the policy. I believe this is because those two were the ones backed up in the other policy. I have stopped backing those up on the old policy and they are now in the soft delete phase. The databases still do not appear when attempting to add them to the new policy. The two policies in question are in the same vault.
I believe they will start appearing when I try to add them to the new policy if I disable soft delete on the vault and totally remove them. However we would like to keep history of backups for a few weeks until the new policy has met the same retention period. It does not seem like this is possible, and that I must permanently delete all traces of backups before migrating items to a new policy. So is my assumption and experience correct, that must I delete all prior backups before I can add the databases to a new policy?
In terms of keeping history when I switch and policies from prior, I know I can run a copy only backups to a share or storage account as a work around, but I just want to make sure I am not missing another approach. There should really be a way to just rename a policy in the same screen that you edit its schedule.

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Luke MacDonald 21 Reputation points

2023-04-21T14:23:25.11+00:00

SwathiDhanwada-MSFT answer confuses me a bit and I am trying to figure out a similar thing. We have a VM with SQL Server backup policy that is backing up 2 databases. We want to standardize our policy names and schedules and I have created a new policy with the schedule. However the two databases are not listed when I attempt to add them to the policy. I believe this is because those two were the ones backed up in the other policy. I have stopped backing those up on the old policy and they are now in the soft delete phase. The databases still do not appear when attempting to add them to the new policy. The two policies in question are in the same vault.
I believe they will start appearing when I try to add them to the new policy if I disable soft delete on the vault and totally remove them. However we would like to keep history of backups for a few weeks until the new policy has met the same retention period. It does not seem like this is possible, and that I must permanently delete all traces of backups before migrating items to a new policy. So is my assumption and experience correct, that must I delete all prior backups before I can add the databases to a new policy?
In terms of keeping history when I switch and policies from prior, I know I can run a copy only backups to a share or storage account as a work around, but I just want to make sure I am not missing another approach. There should really be a way to just rename a policy in the same screen that you edit its schedule.

Answer 1

SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 19,088 Moderator

@Handian Sudianto It is not possible to move a VM to a new backup policy while retaining its backup history in the old policy. When you move a VM to a new backup policy, the old backup policy will stop protecting the VM and the new backup policy will start protecting it. This means that the backup history for the VM will start fresh in the new policy.

However, you can still keep the old backup policy and its backup history intact for the VM. You can create a new backup policy for the two VMs and keep the old backup policy for the other VMs. This way, you can have two backup policies running in parallel, one for the two VMs and one for the other VMs. I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Handian Sudianto 7,241 Reputation points

2023-04-18T05:28:23.54+00:00

Hello @SwathiDhanwada-MSFT This mean we lost backup history when we takeout the VM and migrate to new policy, right?
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 19,088 Reputation points Moderator

2023-04-25T09:52:29.11+00:00

@Handian Sudianto The backup history will not be available within new policy but the backup history within the old policy still exists unless its deleted or the retention period is over.

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