long term retention for archiving purposes

Question

long term retention for archiving purposes

Johannes Petrus Otten 20

Hello,

I am trying to achieve for a select few VMs, one or two long term backup (8 Years) and then switch to a normal shorter retention period (few weeks, months)

(Scenario is that a few VMs with auditable information are no longer actively used, but are still online in a isolated subnet. So very static and only needed for archive function. Backups can be short term retention since there are no changes to data. However, I need a golden copy on tape that is safe for 8 years)

I am not sure what is the best way to achieve this, and I feel I may be on the wrong track trying to achieve this.

If I am correct, if I make a policy with 8 year retention and later switch to a short term policy , the data that I ment to archive long term will be purged/deleted when the short term policy takes over.

How I tried to achieve my goal:

Create a vault for archiving purposes only, attach the VM to this vault and create a policy that will create two yearbackups (first friday - sunday of the month) and once these are in the vault, stop the backup while retaining data, move the VM to the regular vault , and continue backing up with the short term retention.

This is not very easy to achieve since stopping the backup in the archive vault while retaining data will prevent me from connecting to the default vault. To achieve this, I need to stop the backup while retaining data, stop the VM, move it to another resourcegroup, delete recoverypoints information before I can register the VM to the regular vault and proceed with backing up with a short term retention.

Especially the part the VM needs to be powered of for this makes it a crappy procedure.

But if I would achieve my goal, this is a one off scenario, so still doable.

However, now my VMs are linked to the archive vault with a policy that should keep my retention for 8 years for my year backup. I figured once I see two backups with long retention I repeat my procedure and move back to the regular vault. But for some reason I only see one backup with long retention, although the policy should have made two year backups by now.

For some reason, this is how my retention time points are shown:

Creation time Consistency Recovery type Expiry Time

6/13/2023, 8:15:34 AM Application Consistent Snapshot blank, no date shown

6/13/2023, 7:38:28 AM Application Consistent Snapshot blank, no date shown

6/12/2023, 7:42:56 AM Application Consistent Snapshot and Vault-Standard blank, no date shown

6/11/2023, 7:37:12 AM Application Consistent Snapshot and Vault-Standard 6/13/2023, 5:37:12 AM

6/10/2023, 7:39:25 AM Application Consistent Vault-Standard 6/17/2023, 5:39:25 AM

6/9/2023, 7:36:00 AM Application Consistent Vault-Standard 6/15/2031, 5:36:00 AM

So only one longtime retention , although my policy is configured like this:

Backup frequency

Daily at 7:30 AM W. Europe Standard Time

Instant restore

Retain instant recovery snapshot(s) for 2 day(s)

Retention of daily backup point

Retain backup taken every day at 7:30 AM for 7 Day(s)

Retention of yearly backup point

Retain backup taken every year in June on Second Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday at 7:30 AM for 8 Year(s)

What is puzzling me is why the second yearbackup didnt get saved:

User's image

Also, another train of thought, I realized that if I start a backup manually, I can actually put in retention date for that backup job. But it appears that this date is not actually used and it shows one month retention instead.

Can you explain why I do not get a second year backup with these settings and do you have any advice on how to approach this strange scenario?

Main reason why I am trying to get this sorted is cost saving, we do not want to keep making year backups in the upcoming years, since the systems are static and my original year backup will do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

JPO

Johannes Petrus Otten 20 Reputation points

2023-06-16T06:14:35.7633333+00:00

Hello, thanks for the response to my questions.

I was very excited to read that the on demand expiration time would not be overwritten by the policy but when I tested that earlier it did not seem to work like that, so I repeated my test.

It looks like if you change the date with your keyboard it changes it back to the default of 30 days.

I took this screenshot yesterday when I tried again, to verify and confirm for my self I changed it to 2031 (long term) and I had not even noticed last night but now I tried to convince myself I put in 2031 I noticed the screenshot I took was 2023 (30 days) . It appears that if you use the calender (select date) on the right it does stick and it will maintain the 2031 date.

My test backup is running now, but it looks like that will make the difference.

I find this very odd and misleading, this behavior made my think putting in the date manually was overwritten by the policy.

Anyway , if this test backup actually comes back with a 2031 retention point, my goal CAN be achieved without going through the hassle of changing policy or vault to achieve my goal, so that is big win.

I will post the result of my latest backup test.
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-06-16T06:22:09.38+00:00

@Johannes Petrus Otten Good luck! :)

Accepted answer

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Johannes Petrus Otten 20 Reputation points

2023-06-16T06:14:35.7633333+00:00

Hello, thanks for the response to my questions.

I was very excited to read that the on demand expiration time would not be overwritten by the policy but when I tested that earlier it did not seem to work like that, so I repeated my test.

It looks like if you change the date with your keyboard it changes it back to the default of 30 days.

I took this screenshot yesterday when I tried again, to verify and confirm for my self I changed it to 2031 (long term) and I had not even noticed last night but now I tried to convince myself I put in 2031 I noticed the screenshot I took was 2023 (30 days) . It appears that if you use the calender (select date) on the right it does stick and it will maintain the 2031 date.

My test backup is running now, but it looks like that will make the difference.

I find this very odd and misleading, this behavior made my think putting in the date manually was overwritten by the policy.

Anyway , if this test backup actually comes back with a 2031 retention point, my goal CAN be achieved without going through the hassle of changing policy or vault to achieve my goal, so that is big win.

I will post the result of my latest backup test.
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-06-16T06:22:09.38+00:00

@Johannes Petrus Otten Good luck! :)

Answer 1

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Microsoft Employee Moderator

@Johannes Petrus Otten Thank you for reaching out to us on Microsoft Q&A platform. Happy to answer any questions you may have!

You could go ahead and take an on-demand backup and specify the date to retain it till.

On-demand backups are not related to the policy and will expire on the day selected when the backup was made.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-vm-backup-faq#does-an-on-demand-backup-job-use-the-same-retention-schedule-as-scheduled-backups

Now the next question may end up being about the archive tier.

This document shows monthly/yearly recovery points are eligible, so based of that, the OnDemand backup is not eligible even after the 3months is up.

Azure Backup - Archive tier overview - Azure Backup | Microsoft Learn

If the response helped, do "Accept Answer" and up-vote it

Johannes Petrus Otten 20 Reputation points

2023-06-16T09:10:08.26+00:00

So I can confirm the test backup (long term) I started on demand worked as intended when I used the calendar to set the date for expiration.
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-06-16T11:01:59.13+00:00

@Johannes Petrus Otten Thanks for confirming! :)

Answer 2

Johannes Petrus Otten 20

One other thing I have seen that I found confusing...........

In my starter post I wrote:

Retain backup taken every year in June on Second Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday at 7:30 AM for 8 Year(s)

What is puzzling me is why the second yearbackup didnt get saved:

User's image

Retain backup taken every year in June on Second Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday at 7:30 AM for 8 Year(s)

When I checked a little later I noticed it did give me more than one long retention point:

User's image

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long term retention for archiving purposes

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