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Back up an Azure VM using Enhanced policy

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This article explains how to use Enhanced policy to configure Multiple Backups Per Day and back up Trusted Launch VMs with Azure Backup service.

Azure Backup now supports Enhanced policy that's needed to support new Azure offerings. For example, Trusted Launch VM is supported with Enhanced policy only.

Important

You must enable backup of Trusted Launch VM through enhanced policy only. Enhanced policy provides the following features:

Screenshot showing the enhanced backup policy options.

The following screenshot shows Multiple Backups occurred in a day.

Screenshot showing the multiple backup instances occurred in a day.

Note

The above screenshot shows that one of the backups is transferred to Vault-Standard tier.

Create an Enhanced policy and configure VM backup

Follow these steps:

  1. In the Azure portal, select a Recovery Services vault to back up the VM.

  2. Under Backup, select Backup Policies.

    Screenshot showing to choose the backup policies option.

  3. Click +Add.

    Screenshot showing to add a backup policy.

  4. On Select policy type, select Azure Virtual Machine.

  5. On Create policy, perform the following actions:

    • Policy sub-type: Select Enhanced type. By default, the policy type is set to Standard.

      Screenshot showing to select backup policies subtype as enhanced.

    • Backup schedule: You can select frequency as Hourly/Daily/Weekly.

      With backup schedule set to Hourly, the default selection for start time is 8 AM, schedule is Every 4 hours, and duration is 24 Hours. Hourly backup has a minimum RPO of 4 hours and a maximum of 24 hours. You can set the backup schedule to 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24 hours respectively.

      Note that Hourly backup frequency is in preview.

    • Instant Restore: You can set the retention of recovery snapshot from 1 to 30 days. The default value is set to 7.

    • Retention range: Options for retention range are auto-selected based on backup frequency you choose. The default retention for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly backup points are set to 180 days, 12 weeks, 60 months, and 10 years respectively. You can customize these values as required.

    Screenshot showing to configure the enhanced backup policy.

  6. Click Create.

Note

  • The support for Enhanced policy is available in all Azure Public and US Government regions.
  • We support Enhanced policy configuration through Recovery Services vault and VM Manage blade only. Configuration through Backup center is currently not supported.
  • For hourly backups, the last backup of the day is transferred to vault. If backup fails, the first backup of the next day is transferred to vault.
  • Enhanced policy is only available to unprotected VMs that are new to Azure Backup. Note that Azure VMs that are protected with existing policy can't be moved to Enhanced policy.
  • Back up an Azure VM with disks that has public network access disabled is not supported.

Next steps