As the move to the cloud continues at a record pace, understanding how to properly backup and recover Azure virtual machines is becoming a key skill, one that every IT professional should possess.
In this course, you will learn how to plan and deploy Azure Backup and how to manage backups on a day-to-day basis. You will learn how to create the Recovery Services Vault that stores backed-up data, how to create backup policies, and how to perform backup operations. You’ll also learn how to perform VM restores.
The topics covered in this Azure course map very closely to the learning objectives covered in the Microsoft Azure certification exams. By mastering the topics covered in this course, you will not only learn the skills necessary for day-to-day Azure Backup management, but also learn the skills necessary to become Azure certified.
Learning Objectives
- Learn how to configure and review backup reports
- Understand how to perform backup operations
- Create a Recovery Services Vault
- Be able to create and configure backup policies
- Know how to assign backup policies
- Execute and perform restore operations
Intended Audience
- IT Professionals interested in becoming Azure cloud architects
- IT Professionals preparing for Microsoft’s Azure certification exams
Prerequisites
- General knowledge of IT infrastructure
- General knowledge of the Azure environment
Before leveraging Azure Backup Reports, a storage account must first be provisioned for Recovery Services vault. This needs to be done only once and once the storage account is configured, you can go to Power BI directly to view Content Pack and leverage Backup Reports. This process is launched from the Recovery Services vault dashboard which have already opened here on my screen. From the list of items appearing under the vault, click Backup Reports under the Monitoring and Reports section to configure a storage account for reports.
From the Backup Reports blade, click on the Diagnostic Settings link to open the Diagnostic Settings user interface. This is used to configure data pushed to the storage account. Click on Turn On Diagnostics to open the interface for configuring the storage account. Provide a name in the name field and check the archive to a storage account checkbox so that reporting data can flow into the storage account. Click the storage account picker and choose the correct subscription and the storage account from the list for storing reporting data and then click OK.
Under the Log section, click the Azure Backup Report checkbox. Move the slider to select a retention period that fits your environment. Reporting data will only be kept for the period specified using this slider. To save the settings, click the Save button along the top menu. Clicking Save completes the configuration of the storage account and prepares it for storing reporting data. The Diagnostic Settings table should now show the new settings enabled for the vault. If it doesn't show up immediately, refresh the table to ensure that you can see the updated settings.
After the storage account has been configured to receive reporting data for Azure Backup, you need to configure Power BI to read the data via its reporting. You should wait 24 hours for the initial data push to complete before configuring Power BI.
However, for this demonstration, I'm just going to go ahead and add it now in the interest of time. To get started with the Power BI setup, sign in to Power BI. You can do this by browsing to your Backup vault and clicking Backup Reports in the left pane. From there, click Sign In under step two. If you don't already have a Power BI account, set one up for free. As you can see here, I already have my account setup. Click Service Content Packs in the Get Data screen. Find Azure Backup and click Get It Now. Enter the name of the storage account that you configured for Azure Backup Reports and then click the Next button.
You'll need to provide the storage account access key for the storage account so that Power BI can access it. You can view and copy storage access keys by switching over to your storage account in the Azure Portal and clicking Access Keys in the left pane under Settings. Either key will work, but you would typically select Key One.
If you're supplying the access key, click the Sign In button. After signing in, you get the importing data notification. Eventually, you'll see the success notification after the import completes. The import process may take some time to complete if there is a lot of data in the storage account. When the data import completes, the Azure Backup Content Pack becomes visible in Apps in the navigation pane and the list shows the Azure Backup dashboard. It shows reports, data sets, et cetera. Because I didn't wait the full 24 hours to do the actual setup, data in my reporting here is obviously lacking. However, in a production environment, to view the complete set of reports, you can click any report in the dashboard.
Click each tab within the reports to view reports in that area. You can use these reports to manage your Azure Backups moving forward.
Tom is a 25+ year veteran of the IT industry, having worked in environments as large as 40k seats and as small as 50 seats. Throughout the course of a long an interesting career, he has built an in-depth skillset that spans numerous IT disciplines. Tom has designed and architected small, large, and global IT solutions.
In addition to the Cloud Platform and Infrastructure MCSE certification, Tom also carries several other Microsoft certifications. His ability to see things from a strategic perspective allows Tom to architect solutions that closely align with business needs.
In his spare time, Tom enjoys camping, fishing, and playing poker.