Back up an Azure VM using Enhanced policy

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

Choose a client

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. Select +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.

    • 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 autoselected 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.

    Note

    The maximum limit of instant recovery point retention range depends on the number of snapshots you take per day. If the snapshot count is more (for example, every 4 hours frequency in 24 hours duration - 6 scheduled snapshots), then the maximum allowed days for retention reduces.

    However, if you choose lower RPO of 12 hours, the snapshot retention is increased to 30 days.

  6. Select 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.

Enable selective disk backup and restore

You can exclude noncritical disks from backup by using selective disk backup to save costs. Using this capability, you can selectively back up a subset of the data disks that are attached to your VM, and then restore a subset of the disks that are available in a recovery point, both from instant restore and vault tier. Learn more.

Next steps