Introduction
As part of my journey to becoming an Azure Administrator, I recently completed Lab 10 - Implement Data Protection, which focused on the backup and disaster recovery of Azure virtual machines (VMs).
In this lab, I learned how to create a Recovery Services vault, configure backup policies, and implement disaster recovery using Azure Site Recovery. These skills are essential for ensuring that virtual machines are protected from data loss and can be quickly restored in case of accidental or malicious data loss.
Lab Overview
This lab provided hands-on experience with Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery. I learned how to create a Recovery Services vault to store backup data and configure a backup policy for Azure virtual machines. Additionally, I explored Azure Site Recovery for disaster recovery scenarios, ensuring that workloads are replicated and can failover to a secondary site in the event of a disaster.
Skills Practiced:
✅ Creating and configuring a Recovery Services vault
✅ Implementing Azure VM-level backup
✅ Configuring and monitoring backup jobs
✅ Implementing disaster recovery with Azure Site Recovery
✅ Using PowerShell to test backup and disaster recovery functionality
Task 1: Use a Template to Provision an Infrastructure
The first task was to use a custom template to deploy a virtual machine for testing backup and recovery. Here’s what I did:
1️⃣ Downloaded the provided template and parameters files.
2️⃣ Used the Deploy a custom template feature in the Azure portal to upload the files and provision resources.
3️⃣ Configured the virtual machine and virtual network with default settings to start the backup and recovery process.
4️⃣ Waited for the deployment to complete, which took about 5 minutes.
📌 Insight:
Using templates ensures consistent infrastructure provisioning and can save time, especially when deploying resources that need specific configurations like VMs or virtual networks.
Task 2: Create and Configure a Recovery Services Vault
Next, I created a Recovery Services vault, which is used to store backup data. Here’s what I did:
1️⃣ In the Azure portal, I created a new Recovery Services vault in the same region where the virtual machines were deployed.
2️⃣ I configured the Geo-redundant storage (GRS) replication option to ensure that backup data is protected across regions.
3️⃣ Enabled Soft Delete to protect backups from being accidentally deleted.
4️⃣ Waited for the vault to deploy, which took a couple of minutes.
📌 Insight:
The Recovery Services vault is the core resource for Azure Backup. It stores backup data and allows for configuration of backup and retention policies. Enabling Geo-redundant storage (GRS) ensures that backup data is stored across Azure’s paired regions, providing enhanced protection.
Task 3: Configure Azure Virtual Machine-Level Backup
In this task, I configured Azure VM-level backup for the virtual machine deployed earlier. Here’s what I did:
1️⃣ I created a backup policy with daily backup frequency and a 2-day retention period for instant recovery snapshots.
2️⃣ Applied the backup policy to the az104-10-vm0 virtual machine.
3️⃣ Triggered a manual backup and confirmed that the backup was pending and later successfully completed.
📌 Insight:
Azure Backup provides a flexible way to configure backup schedules and retention policies. VM-level backups are critical for protecting your VMs against accidental or malicious data loss.
Task 4: Monitor Azure Backup
In this task, I configured monitoring for the backup service and sent logs and metrics to a storage account for further analysis. Here’s what I did:
1️⃣ I created a Storage account and configured the Recovery Services vault to send logs and metrics to it.
2️⃣ I enabled diagnostic settings and selected the appropriate categories for backup reporting.
3️⃣ I reviewed the backup job details to ensure it was successfully backing up the virtual machine.
📌 Insight:
By configuring diagnostic settings and sending logs to a storage account, you can monitor backup jobs, review their health, and troubleshoot issues in a centralized location.
Task 5: Enable Virtual Machine Replication
In the final task, I configured disaster recovery for the virtual machine using Azure Site Recovery. Here’s what I did:
1️⃣ Created a Recovery Services vault in a different region (West US) to serve as the disaster recovery site.
2️⃣ Enabled replication for the az104-10-vm0 virtual machine, specifying the replication settings.
3️⃣ Waited for the replication process to complete, ensuring that the VM was protected and replicated to the secondary region.
📌 Insight:
Azure Site Recovery replicates your virtual machines to a secondary region, ensuring that in the event of a disaster, you can failover to the replica VM with minimal downtime. This is essential for business continuity planning.
Key Learnings
1️⃣ Azure Backup
Recovery Services vault is used to store backup data and configure backup policies for virtual machines.
Backup policies define the frequency of backups and the retention period for recovery points.
Geo-redundant storage (GRS) replicates backup data to a secondary region for enhanced protection.
2️⃣ Azure Site Recovery
Site Recovery replicates workloads to a secondary region and allows for failover in case of a disaster.
Replicated VMs can be restored and run in the secondary region, ensuring business continuity.
3️⃣ Monitoring and Reporting
Use diagnostic settings to send logs and metrics to a storage account for centralized monitoring.
Backup jobs can be monitored and managed directly from the Recovery Services vault blade.
Conclusion
Completing this lab reinforced my understanding of Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery, which are key components for ensuring data protection and business continuity in the cloud. Configuring backups for virtual machines ensures that your data is safe from accidental loss, while disaster recovery with Azure Site Recovery ensures that your applications can continue running even during major outages.
🚀 Stay tuned for my next blog post on Lab 11 - Implement Monitoring!
🔗 Follow my journey as I continue mastering Azure Administration! 🚀
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