Where Azure Backup and Site Recovery keep their data; it offers soft delete, immutability and multi-user authorisation, but is the wrong choice for cheaply archiving files you already have.
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In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Recovery Services vault in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- WHERE
Limits a SELECT, UPDATE or DELETE to just the rows meeting a condition. Omit it, and the statement hits every row.
- Azure Backup
Azure's backup service, which keeps recovery points, long-term retention included, in a Recovery Services vault. It restores data rather than failing workloads over, which is the job of Site Recovery.
- Azure Site Recovery
Disaster recovery service replicating VMs to a secondary site or region; recovery time is measured in minutes and recovery points are kept for no longer than 15 days.
- Soft delete
Retains deleted backups or data so they can be recovered during a retention period.
- Immutability
An optional setting for OneLake diagnostics that locks diagnostic logs as write-once, read-many for a chosen retention period, so nobody can edit or delete them. Once set, the period cannot be reduced or undone.
- Authorisation
Working out which actions and data a signed-in user or application is permitted, typically via role assignments. It comes after authentication.
Related terms
- Azure Backup security PIN
Short-lived PIN, valid for five minutes, created from a Recovery Services vault's Properties. Hybrid backups through MARS, MABS or DPM ask for it before critical actions such as stopping protection with data deletion or changing the passphrase; Azure VM backups aren't covered.
- Azure Files backup
Azure Backup for file shares, using a Recovery Services vault that must share the storage account's region. Schedules are either daily or hourly; hourly ones repeat every 4, 6, 8 or 12 hours, with 1 and 2 added in newer policies.
- Azure Site Recovery Provider
Component installed on each Hyper-V host, or on the VMM server where one is used, which registers that server with a Recovery Services vault and manages replication.
- Backup Contributor
Azure role allowed to manage backups within a Recovery Services vault, though it can neither create vaults nor give access to others.
- Backup storage redundancy
Replication choice for a Recovery Services vault (GRS unless you pick LRS or ZRS). Set it before protecting the first item, because it is locked once backup has been configured.
- Backup vault
Vault type in Azure Backup aimed at newer workloads, for instance managed disks, Azure Blobs, AKS and Azure Database for PostgreSQL. Protecting Azure VMs, Azure Files or MARS backups requires a Recovery Services vault instead.
- Immutable vaults
Recovery Services vault option ensuring recovery points cannot be removed ahead of their expiry.
- Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent
Usually installed on on-premises Windows machines, the MARS agent sends their files, folders and system state directly into a Recovery Services vault.