I am new to Azure and setting up the backup of multiple Azure VM's, all on the Location. 2 of the 3 VM's have additional data disks attached to them.
Will the Recovery Services Backup policy also back up the data on these disks or do I need to setup a separate backup policy to manage these? Thanks
Azure Backup for VMs include automatically all disks attached to the VM.
Note, there is some limitations to how quickly it can do the backup if there are multiple disks attached. See e.g. Plan your VM backup infrastructure in Azure for more infromation.
All attached data disks will be included in any VM which is enrolled into backups. Few limitations to take note of below.
There's also a private preview currently running for data disks which are 1TB+ in size, link below.
For Azure VM backup, each VM can have up to 16 data disks with each data disk being of size 1024GB or less.
Azure Backup (Private Preview) Support Disks up to 4TB
Azure Backup FAQ
Related
In Azure, is it possible to have master VM that writes to a disk which has read-only slave replicas on other VMs?
Our app needs to download ~100GB of files when scaling to a new VM. This is loaded slowly from an external provider but we want to make it available quickly when we scale out more VMs.
I don't think you can do streaming replication (which I think is what you're asking for), or read only slave through the Azure service without implementing this yourself over network or through a relational database management system.
As of this writing, one disk cannot be connected to multiple Azure VMs (See FAQ for Managed Disks. One option would be to create a snapshot of the disk, and create a new disk from the snapshot. You could automate this via the Azure Managed Disk Service API (eg: an Azure Powershell script), and it would have to happen on a VM that isn't running.
If your data is same and doesn't change per new VM created then you can have it stored on the Azure File Storage Standard/ Premium. Then have Azure File storage attached to every new VM whenever it is created. snapshot disk will make it pretty complex. Azure Files Storage is good choice in this scenario.
I have an Azure VM with un-managed disk. I want to move it to another region.
Is there any other way than generalizing my current VM?
Is there any other way than generalizing my current VM?
Azure does not support changing a VM's location. You need copy the VM's VHD to another location and use that VHD to create a new VM.
If you don't use current VM's VHD to create multiple VMs in other location, you don't need generalize your VM. Please refer to following steps.
Stop your VM.
Create a new storage account and blob container in another location.
Copy VHD to the new storage account, you could use Azcopy. For more information about Azcopy please refer to this article.
AzCopy /Source:https://shuidisks446.blob.core.windows.net/vhds /Dest:https://shuidiag102.blob.core.windows.net/vhds /SourceKey:sGqtdFHQWQWYyf2tRWGF5jkeAEubTp13AVaeTM25QogxXE+K0Ezq1ulcs18qGVPhCEp6ULdLLbKVa7fMbUvYZg== /DestKey:iCjeS+eegjkSJXHjH2UqCkqXnUPiCGvxaOG0Ad2LoPgUnvBoWl9wQJtC1jc//lOj4CF7khpLQe791P4QeyTY6Q== /Pattern:shui20161222141315.vhd
Use the VHD to create a new VM. It is easy for you to recreate with existing VHD by using this template.
Important: Because you don't generalize your currently VM, please don't start two VM at the same time. The second would have the same network issue.
Yes, even though the VM is generalized if you restore from backup the working state will get restored
Plan your VM backup infrastructure in Azure
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-vms-introduction
Back up Azure virtual machines to a Recovery Services vault
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-arm-vms
Use Azure portal to restore virtual machines
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-arm-restore-vms
Azure Site Recovery now offers migration capability between some regions. See this link for details.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/site-recovery/azure-to-azure-tutorial-migrate
Notably, you can only move between supported regions as shown here - basically the same continent.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/site-recovery/azure-to-azure-support-matrix#region-support
I'm an azure newbie and just trying to understand Azure better. My questions are specific to backing up Linux VMs in Azure. Please help me in understanding it better.
I read that Azure backup takes snapshots and then uploads them to the vault. I'm trying to understand how using 'Azure backup' to backup a VM is different from taking the snapshots of OS Disk and data disk of azure VM via "az vm" cli commands?
What exactly is the vault here? Is it internally implemented as a storage account with blob container or is it something similar to the Glacier in AWS?
Which is better cost wise, azure backup or osdisk snapshots?
If both the options are similar, i.e using azure backup or taking a snapshot of OS disk/Data disks. Is there an advantage of using one over the other?
Are the Snapshots of OS disk taken in Azure global in nature? Can they be accessed from any other geos?
In the azure portal, snapshots, what is "snapshot state"? Why is the snapshot state "Unattached" for me even after spinning off a VM from the snapshot disk?
I'm trying to understand how using 'Azure backup' to backup a VM is different from taking the snapshots of OS Disk and data disk of azure VM via "az vm" cli commands?
Azure backup works as disaster recovery service(DRaaS). It is a managed service and more easier to use. You don't need to worried where and how the backup files are stored. If the VM is running, Azure Backup service uses the VMSnapshotLinux extension to take a point-in-time snapshot in Linux. Otherwise, the Backup service takes a snapshot of the underlying storage.
What exactly is the vault here?
A backup vault is an managed storage service that stores all the backups that have been created over time. It also contains the backup policy applied to the protected VMs.
Is it internally implemented as a storage account with blob container or is it something similar to the Glacier in AWS?
It is a managed service, it hasn't been announced how it is worked.
Which is better cost wise, azure backup or osdisk snapshots?
Azure backup has extra charge than the storage consumed charge. For more information, link below is for your reference.
Backup Pricing
Is there an advantage of using one over the other?
If you want to take a snapshot and the VM is running, we suggest you shutdown the VM first to take a clean and consistent snapshot. Azure backup service will use a extension to do it, we don't need to shutdown the VM.
Are the Snapshots of OS disk taken in Azure global in nature? Can they be accessed from any other geos?
A snapshot is a read-only blob, it can be accessed from any other geos.
In the azure portal, snapshots, what is "snapshot state"?
The 'Unattached' is the state of image/disk. It means that the disk haven't attached to any VM.
I'm a lone dev that inherited a giant undocumented mess of an azure vm without any sysadmin-like training nor a lab to test things out. This vm runs our website just fine, but I couldn't log in to VestaCp because disk space usage is at 100%.
I did setup azure to make daily backups. Now I'm wondering if azure somehow stores them on the same machine e.g. they're the cause of the full disk space.
if so, how do I remove a set of old backups?
Now I'm wondering if azure somehow stores them on the same machine e.g. they're the cause of the full disk space.
As mentioned in the official document about creating a recovery services vault for a VM:
The location of Recovery Services vault determines the geographic region where your backup data is sent.
If you have virtual machines in multiple regions, create a Recovery Services vault in each region.
There is no need to specify the storage accounts used to store the backup data--the Recovery Services vault and the Azure Backup service automatically handle the storage.
Per my understanding, your VM backup data could be stored on the storage accounts that are managed automatically by the Recovery Services vault (ARM) and the Azure Backup service (ASM).
Moreover, if this issue could not be solved by removing a set of old backups, I assumed that you could follow this tutorial to resize Azure VM OS or Data Disk created using Azure Service Manager (ASM) or this tutorial for resizing ARM VM OS & Data disk.
I'm using Azure VM (Ubuntu 16.04) as web server. For some reason at my resource group for VM there are two storages.
First - GRS Standart and second LRS Premium.
How to determine which storage is necessary for my web server and which I can safely delete?
You can check the storage account holding the disks (OS and Data disks) by clicking on Disks option and then clicking on individual disks. You will see the URL of the page blob holding the disk and that should tell you about the storage account.
However before deleting the other storage account, please check if it is not used for collecting diagnostics data for the VM.
Making an assumption, I believe your LRS Premium account is holding the disks and the other one is for storing diagnostics data.