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Azure Backup Server – How to Restore – Part 5

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This will be the final post in the Azure Backup Server series. I hope this becomes the “Unofficial Azure Backup Server” guide as Microsoft has yet to put a guide together that goes over some of these items (as of 2016Q3).

At this point, we have this new shiny backup product installed and backing up like a champ – as a backup administrator you are pumped. Then you remember, whats the point in having a backup application backup your data if you can’t restore it. In this post, we will go over the steps on how to restore a file from our backup.

Restoring Files

  1. Open the Azure Backup Server and click on “Recovery”click_Recover
  2. Click on the data and last backup time that you know the file was there. Notice, if you click on a different Recovery time, you could either retrieve the local disk or the Azure CloudCloudDisk
  3. Select the file that you want to restore, then click on the “restore” button in the top left hand cornerrestore
  4. On the “Recovery Wizard” dialog, ensure you have selected the file that you want to restore. Click nextrecovery_selection
  5. On the “Recovery Type” – Where do you want to restore the file to? Bad koto its original location or to an alternate location?recovery_type
  6. Recovery Options – Select the option based on the restore methodrecovery_options
  7. On the Summary Page, ensure you have what you want, then click on recover.summary_recovery
  8. Success!

This has been a fun series to write. I hope this helps with the install and configuration of Azure Backup Server. There are a lot of advanced options within the product that we didn’t go over in this series.

I would recommend always working with your Microsoft Partner when working with new solutions.

Part 1: Azure Backup | Recovery Vault Creation

Part 2: Azure Backup | Software Install

Part 3: Azure Backup | Agent Install

Part 4: Azure Backup | Creating Protection Groups

Part 5: Azure Backup | Restoring Files

 

Azure Backup Server Series – Protection Groups

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This is the fourth post in the Azure Backup Server series. In this post we will be will be covering how to add protection (backup) to the machine that we installed the agent on in the previous step. I will assume you have completed the steps in the previous posts in the series before attempting to add protection.

Creating a New Protection Group

  1. Click on “Protection” in the bottom right if the screen. This is above the management button we used in the last series.
  2. Click on “New” in the top left corner of the Protection screenNew-Button
  3. On the “Select Protection Group Type” dialog screen, select whether you will backup servers or clients. In this example, we will be backing up serversProtectionGroupType
  4. On the Select “Group Members” Dialog, expand out the options for the server you want to back up. Select the files and folders that you would like to back up on this machine. In this example, we will be backing up the server for “system protection”. Once you select those items, you will see them come up in “selected members” frame. Click next.GroupMember_Selection
  5. On the “Select Data Protection Method” dialog – you will name the protection group as well as chose if you want short term protection and/or online protection. Click NextDataProtectionMethod
  6. On the “Specify Short-Tem Goals” screen, you will select the short term goals. These backups will be stored on the disk we specified when setting up the local storage. You can do up to every 30 minutes. Click NextShort_Term_Goals
  7. Chose your disk allocation settings | Click NextDiskAllocation
  8. Choose a Replica Creation Method. In my experience, leave the default.. Click nextReplicaCreation
  9. Chose a Consistency check option. Azure Backup Server will tell you when the replica isn’t consistent. I would recommend to only run the consistency check if the replica becomes inconsistent.  Click nextconsit
  10. Specify the data you also would like to be sent to Azure Storage. To me, this is a no brainer.. Chose what you wanted to backup in the first place. Select all, then nextOnlneProtection
  11. Specify Online Backup Schedule – You can do opt to do this up to two times per day. I recommend doing this twice a day. In customer deployments i typically do 12PM and 8PM. Click NextOnlineSchedule
  12. Specify your Online Retention Policy. Azure will allow you to keep up to 99 years worth of backups in the cloud. Select the Online Retention Policy that fits within the retention policy of your organizationOnlineRetention
  13. On the Choose Online Replication – This is a silly option in my opinion.. Select “Automatically over the network”. Click next.OnlineReplication
  14. On the Summary page – you can review your options and then click on create groupSummary
  15. You should see the “success” after each task.. Click Close..

At this point, your server will begin to create a replica and create a backup. During the next available “Online” backup window, the data will then be sent to Azure.

After your first online backup window, you will start to see the usage in your Azure Portal as seen below.

In the next part of the series, we will go over how to recover a file that has been backed up with Azure Backup Server.

Part 1: Azure Backup | Recovery Vault Creation

Part 2: Azure Backup | Software Install

Part 3: Azure Backup | Agent Install

Part 4: Azure Backup | Creating Protection Groups

 

Azure Backup Server Series – Installing Agents

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This is the third post in the Azure Backup Server series, we will be covering the agent install portion of the deployment. As I mentioned during the last post, I will assume that you have all previous steps completed before moving on to this step.

This will be the shortest post of the series.

Agent Install

  1. Open the Azure Backup Server application via the desktop icons created during the install.
  2. Click on the Management button in the bottom left hand cornerAZ-MGMGT
  3. On the Management screen, Click on Agents, then click on Install | This will bring up the “Protection Agent Installation Wizard” screen.
    install-agent
  4. Select Install Agents – This option will allow you to push agents via the Azure Backup Server | Click Next
    pro-agent
  5. If the computer you want to backup is on the same domain as the Azure Backup Server, you will see the servers listed in the available servers list. You can search for servers from this screen as well. Click on the server you want to install the agent and click Add so that it is in the selected computer section. Click next
    computer-ad
  6. Enter administrative credentials that you would normally use to install software on the server. Click next.
  7. On the “Chose restart method” screen – Chose the restart option for your server and click next.
  8. On the installation page – click “Install” – this will install the agent on the workstation – When the install is complete, you will either get a success or fail. Once successful, click close.
  9. Once the install is complete- you will see the agent installed
    ag-installed

**Note: At this step, you will need to install the “Windows Backup Server” feature on the selected server. DPM utilizes the built in backup application to assist with backups.

Part 1: Azure Backup | Recovery Vault Creation

Part 2: Azure Backup | Software Install

Part 3: Azure Backup | Agent Install

Azure Server Backup Series – Installing Azure Server Backup

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This is the second post in a series on Azure Backup Server. In this blog post, I will be going through the Microsoft Azure Backup Server install. I will assume you have completed all of the steps in the first post in this series, as well as ensuring all prereqs have been met.

Downloading the Software Package

  1. Sign into Microsoft Azure and select “Recovery Services Vault” and select the Recovery Vault we created in the previous post | Click “All Settings”
  2. Click on “Backup” in Settings tab. It will then open the “Backup Goal” tab. Change the “Where is your backup workload running to “On Premise”. Under the “What do you want to backup” section, chose Files & Folders, SQL and Exchange. This will ensure you download the Azure Backup Server. Then click “OK” **Note – If you only select Files and Folders, it will default to only downloading the agent. The agent will move backups directly to the cloud with no “On-Prem” backup.Backup_Goal_-_Microsoft_Azure
  3. Once you click ok, this will change the “Getting Started” tab. It will now reference “Backup Goal – Azure Backup Server.
  4. In the “Prepare Infrastructure” tab, Click on Download link in step 1. This will open a new web browser tab that allows you to download Microsoft Azure Backup Server. 
     Prepare_infrastructure_-_Microsoft_Azure5. Click on the “Download” button and you will be prompted  for the download that you want. You will want to select all of the files and save them in the same folder location locally.

Download_Microsoft®_Azure_Backup_from_Official_Microsoft_Download_CenterDown1

Extracting the installer

  1. Go the the location that you downloaded the software above.
  2. Click on the MicrosoftAzureBackupInstaller.exe | This will a wizard to extract the setup files required to a location you decide. I recommended using the default “C:\Microsoft Azure Backup” folder. This process usually takes about 2-3 minutes.

Installing Azure Backup Server

  1. After extraction has completed, you will be prompted for by the “Microsoft Azure Backup” setup wizard
  2. Click on “Microsoft Azure Backup” under the install section
  3. The “Prerequisite Checks” page will check your machine for required software installed – click “Next”
  4. Azure Backup Server requires Microsoft SQL Standard and the installer comes bundled with this software. Ensure “Install new Instance of SQL Server with this Setup” and click “Check and install” –
    1. Note: Azure Backup Server requires you to use a LOCAL SQL instance. Do not select remote SQL as the software will not work with remote SQL. Why would this even be an option if it doesn’t work with remote SQL 
    2. Note: After you click “Check and Install” you will be required to reboot the server.
  5. Once the server reboots, open the folder that you extracted the install to. In this example, we used “C:\Microsoft Azure Backup” and double click on “Setup.exe” This will bring us back to the “Check and Install” step. All steps should pass and you will be able to click on next.
  6. Select the location for the installation of Azure Backup Server. I would recommend keeping the defaults | Click Next
    1. Note: The scratch location is a requirement to backup to the cloud. This location needs to have atleast 5% of the data being backed up.
  7. Provide a strong password for the restricted local accounts | Ensure you document the password with the project documentation | Click Next
  8. Select to utilize Microsoft Updates for Azure Backup Server | Click Next
  9. Review the settings and click next
  10. Click Install to install – This Installation happens in phases
  11. You may be prompted to install .Net 4.5 and PowerShell for the Agent install – Click ok
  12. You will then be prompted for the Vault Identification. This is the “Vault” file that you downloaded earlier in this section (Download the Software part 4) | Click Next
  13. vaultOn the Encryption page, I would recommend clicking on the “Generate Passphrase” button – This will populate the fields for you. On the “Location to save passphrase” field, select a network location that is backed up and then DOCUMENT where you saved the encryption key.  You will need to have a copy of this if something happens to this server. Microsoft Online Services does not save or manage this passphrase. | Click Finish
    encryption
  14. Once the registration finishes with the Backup Vault, the install will continue and begin to install SQL 2014, tools & components, as well as Azure Backup Server.

Configuring Onsite Repository

The last part of the software install is to setup and configure the onsite backup repository. My general rule on sizing of this drive is VM Size + 30GB | this also depends on how long you want to retain this data onsite.

  1. Since we are utilizing a VMware based VM, open the vSphere client and right click on the Azure Backup Server VM and click “Edit Settings”
  2. Click Add and go through the process of adding a disk. Click OK and the drive will be added to the VM
  3. Open Disk Management on your Azure Backup VM – right click on the disk that you just added click “Online” to bring the disk online. DO NOT INITIALIZE DISK!disk-AZ
  4. Open Azure Backup server from the icons on the desktop. On the bottom left of the screen, click on the Management option.AZ-MGMGT
  5. Click on the disks section | Then click on the Add button in the top left hand corner to add a disk
    AZ-disk
  6. Disk-StorageOn the “Add Disks to Storage Pool” page, click on the available disk and then click on Add to add the selected disk | Click OKDisk-Storage
  7. Once the disk has been added, you will see the disk available in the DPM Storage Pool.AZ-DiskAvail

This will complete the software install.

Part 1: Azure Backup | Recovery Vault Creation

Part 2: Azure Backup | Software Install

Azure Server Backup Series – Introduction and Creating Azure Recovery Vault

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This is going to be a first of a series of posts on Microsoft Azure Server Backup. I was introduced to Azure Server Backup due to one of my favorite customers chosing this product as their backup platform. They needed to make a change due to having their offsite backup location being shut down. The Azure cloud was a good place for them as they were already backing up select “critical” workstations to Azure.  Azure Backup is not a fit for a lot of people, however it is good at getting your backups offsite to Azure.

During this series, I will be going over how to configure the Azure Backup Vault, Installing Azure Backup Server, Installing Agents and configuring Protection Groups. I will also be doing this install on a VMware VM environment, so we will only be backing up Files & Folders, Exchange and SQL.

A little bit of background on Azure Server Backup before we get started. The Azure Server Backup product is a slimmed down version of Microsoft Data Protection Manager. Azure Backup allows you to backup servers to an on-site location, as well as shipping a copy of the backup offsite to the Microsoft Azure Cloud. We will be going over the “On-Prem” configuration in this series. From what I can tell, the rebranded Azure Server backup has two differences from Microsoft DPM. The first difference is that Azure Server Backup allows you to backup workloads directly to Microsoft Azure. The second is that Microsoft has removed the “Backup to Tape” option from Azure Server Backup.

Prereqs

  • Azure Account (this is assumed)
  • Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 and latest Service Packs
  • .Net 3.5 (this isn’t stated in the documentation, but is called out during the software install)
  • Install the “Windows Server Backup” feature on each server you want to backup
  • An additional drive attached to the backup server. Do not format th

*Note: Azure Backup Server cannot run on a Domain Controller.

Creating the Azure Recovery Vault

  1. On the sidebar, click the “More Services” link and in the list of available resources – type “Recovery Services Vault”
    1. Personal preference – Click on the star to make this a favorite resource so that you can find it easier in the futureRecovery_Services_vaults_-_Microsoft_Azure
  2. On the Recovery Services Vaults menu, click AddAdd-MSAZ
  3. The Recovery Services Vault tab opens. You will be prompted to provide a name, subscription (which should be selected automatically), resources group and geographic location – Select “Create” when complete. This process usually takes between 3-5 minutesRSV-AZ

Configuring Storage Replication

There are two different types of Azure Storage Replication available with Recovery Services Vaults. They are:

  • Local Redundant Storage – This the less expensive option. This type of storage will replicate your data locally in the region you selected above. Your data is replicated three times and reside in separate fault domains
  • Geo-Redundant Storage – This is a more expense option for data resiliency. This will replicate your data to a secondary region that is hundreds, or thousands of miles away from the primary region you selected during the recovery vault creation. This option will protect you in the event of an entire Azure region going down.

To edit the storage replication settings, complete the following steps:

  1. Select the Recovery Vault that you created above – this will open another tab
  2. On the Settings tab, click on “Backup Infrastructure | Backup Configuration and select the storage replication option that you want to use. Make sure you click save after you choose!!!redun-lrs

This completes the steps necessary to Create the Azure Recovery Services Vault.

Part 1: Azure Backup Recovery Vault