Azure Backup Server -- Backup to disk and online

Greg Zartman 26 Reputation points
2021-03-01T16:01:07.547+00:00

I am evaluating Azure Backup Server to replace our current backup software for an on-premises Hyper-V VMs. I want to backup to local disk and to an Azure Recovery Services Vault.

For backup to Azure, does MABS send the VSS snapshot taken during the local disk backup to Azure Cloud or does MABS take an entirely new VSS snapshot to send up to Azure?

Thanks

Azure Backup
Azure Backup
An Azure backup service that provides built-in management at scale.
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  1. SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 38,081 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2021-03-03T07:08:33.527+00:00

    @Greg Zartman , Thank you for your post and I apologize for the delayed response!

    Does MABs take 2 snapshots : one for the disk backup and a second for the online backup or does MABs send the snapshot taken for the disk backup up to azure.
    No. For online backup there is no VM snapshot taken. The replica stored on the MABS storage is cloned and that is uploaded to vault

    Snapshots take up disk space on the host machine and so I want to understand how many snapshots I'm dealing with as I plan out my deployment.
    Snapshot do consume disk space but remember that these snapshots are temporary. Once the backup cycle is complete the snapshots are deleted.

    Hope this helps!

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  2. Leon Laude 85,666 Reputation points
    2021-03-01T16:07:24.87+00:00

    Hi @Greg Zartman ,

    The Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent uses VSS to take a point-in-time snapshot of the volumes selected for backup, and will only use the Windows system write operation to capture the snapshot.

    Note that the agent doesn't use any application VSS writers, which means that it doesn't capture app-consistent snaphots.

    For more information, you can read here:

    Azure Backup architecture and components
    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-architecture

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    (If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

    Best regards,
    Leon