What will happen to on-demand backup if I Stop backup and choose "Delete the backup data" option

sajjad ali 81

My question is that I would like to keep the backup of the VM after deleting for 1 year.

I have taken on demand backup and select the date of next year for retention, now I want to stop the Backup and choose the "Delete backup data", will this keep my on demand backup for 1 year or will it delete within 14 days?

your answer is very much appreciated.

sajjad ali 81 Reputation points

2021-03-08T19:06:07.773+00:00

Thanks @SadiqhAhmed-MSFT for your reply.

Yes I can stop the backup with retention “keep backup and data”, but this will keep the backup forever but I want to keep it for 1 year, this is because we have 1000’s of VMs and it will be too much work to delete manually, this is the policy that client wants, they want to keep one backup of every deleted VM and keep it for 1 year and then auto delete the backup after 1 year.

I can just delete the VM without stopping backup and run on-demand backup to keep it for 1 year but it will also keep the last backup forever.

Is there anyway where we stop the backup and take a snapshot for 1 year and after one year the Backup is automatically deleted?

Thanks
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2021-03-12T14:01:42.447+00:00

@sajjad ali The delete data is at vault level and no exceptions for ad-hoc backup RPs.
sajjad ali 81 Reputation points

2021-03-12T16:16:46.493+00:00

Thanks Sadiq, what I am trying to find is that is there any way where the data would delete automatically without manual deletion?

We are deleting Vm and want to keep backup for 1 year.

What we trying to achieve that after one year the data should delete automatically because there will be a lot of Vms deleted during the year, so manual intervention will be very time consuming.

I am looking foreword to hear from you.

Thanks
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2021-03-12T19:13:50.147+00:00

@@sajjad ali I’m not aware of any method to accomplish that goal. I believe you could automate using PowerShell to perform the steps to delete the data after a year, so the overhead for 1000’s of VMs would be reduced, but tracking that 1 year time period would be manual.
PRACHI PATIL 0 Reputation points

2024-03-06T20:39:21.6233333+00:00

Hi , I am having the same question my client want to decommission the VM but before that he wants to take the full backup with retention period of 1 year and delete remaining scheduled backups. Did you find any solution ? How to did that ?
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-07T10:37:00+00:00
@PRACHI PATIL To take a full backup of the VM with a retention period of 1 year and delete remaining scheduled backups, you can follow these steps:

Create a new backup policy with a retention period of 1 year.

Assign the new backup policy to the VM.

Trigger a backup job to take a full backup of the VM.

After the backup job is complete, stop protection and delete backup data for the VM. This will delete all the remaining scheduled backups and retain the full backup for 1 year.

If you want to permanently delete the backed-up data before the retention period ends, you can use the "Delete backup data" option.

Note that if you delete the VM without stopping protection, the recovery points will be cleaned periodically according to the retention policy, but the last copy of the virtual machine will remain forever and you'll be billed accordingly. It's recommended to stop protection and delete backup data before deleting the VM.
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-07T10:38:44.99+00:00
@PRACHI PATIL To take a full backup of the VM with a retention period of 1 year and delete remaining scheduled backups, you can follow these steps:

Create a new backup policy with a retention period of 1 year.

Assign the new backup policy to the VM.

Trigger a backup job to take a full backup of the VM.

After the backup job is complete, stop protection and delete backup data for the VM. This will delete all the remaining scheduled backups and retain the full backup for 1 year.

If you want to permanently delete the backed-up data before the retention period ends, you can use the "Delete backup data" option.

Note that if you delete the VM without stopping protection, the recovery points will be cleaned periodically according to the retention policy, but the last copy of the virtual machine will remain forever and you'll be billed accordingly. It's recommended to stop protection and delete backup data before deleting the VM.
PRACHI PATIL 0 Reputation points

2024-03-07T13:26:07.6266667+00:00
Thank you so much for quick response.

I am bit confused here for below 4th point

After the backup job is complete, stop protection and delete backup data for the VM. This will delete all the remaining scheduled backups and retain the full backup for 1 year.

Please correct me if I am wrong in 4th point do you mean to perform below actions.

Stop backup with "delete backup data" will these delete all the backup data expect from the one that I have taken with the new backup policy with retention period of 1 year ?
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-07T14:14:58.0666667+00:00

@PRACHI PATIL Can you show the complete message?
PRACHI PATIL 0 Reputation points

2024-03-07T14:51:16.91+00:00

here it is
PRACHI PATIL 0 Reputation points

2024-03-07T14:52:24.2733333+00:00

Here it is
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-07T15:52:40.6366667+00:00

@PRACHI PATIL You should use "Stop protection and retain backup data" option.

Source link - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-manage-vms#stop-protection-and-retain-backup-data
PRACHI PATIL 0 Reputation points

2024-03-07T16:03:33.99+00:00

But won't that option will retain the backup for lifetime unless we manually delete it ? If I want to retain it for just 1 year and automatically delete after that then what needs to be done?
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-07T16:55:48.5033333+00:00

@PRACHI PATIL When you stop backup and retain data in Azure Backup, the backup data for the protected items is retained according to the retention policy that was assigned to them. The policy will still be active, but no new backups will be taken for the protected items.

Stopping backup and retaining data is useful when you want to keep the existing backup data for compliance or other reasons, but you no longer need to take new backups. This can help you save costs by reducing the amount of storage used for backups.

It's important to note that if you stop backup and retain data, you will still be charged for the storage used by the backup data according to the pricing tier that was assigned to the vault. Therefore, you should review your backup policies and retention periods periodically to ensure that you are not paying for unnecessary storage.

If you want to resume taking backups for the protected items, you can start backup again and assign a new or existing backup policy to them.
sajjad ali 81 Reputation points

2024-03-28T12:41:28.06+00:00
@PRACHI PATIL after reaserching and discussion I found that there is no way to delete your backup data after one year, you have to delete manually, here is what I follow:

take ad hoc backup for one year

Delete VM, backup will not be taken as no VM exist

After one year, I go to Vault, search for the VM and click Stop and Delete data.

There is no automated way where the backup will and all the data deleted after one year.

I hope MS take this into consideration and make it easy fo us :)

1 answer

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2021-03-08T16:17:50.463+00:00

@sajjad ali Thank you for your post!

The option "Delete backup data" will delete the backed up data from the vault if soft delete is not enabled. If soft delete is enabled and you proceed with "Delete backup data" it will delete the data after 14 days. More details are covered here - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/soft-delete-virtual-machines#soft-delete-for-vms-using-azure-portal

Now that your requirement is to stop VM backup and retain data for 1 year, you can stop protection for the VM in question and retain data as long as you want it to be in Azure. Here is the guidance for - Stop protection and retain backup data

Hope this clarifies!

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PRACHI PATIL 0 Reputation points

2024-03-27T10:32:28.25+00:00

I have stopped backup on he VM and have retained backup data and I have deleted VM also after retaining the data so, I have below 2 doubts

In below highlighted part I can see the expiration date for the backup is already passed then why I can still see that particular backup

Why I can't see any expiration date for the last backup

Please help me with the answers. Thanks

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-28T09:03:04.8633333+00:00

@PRACHI PATIL Please see the response below:

If you have stopped backup on the VM and retained backup data, the backup data will be retained for the duration specified in the retention policy. Even if the expiration date for the backup has passed, you will still be able to see the backup data in the Recovery Services vault until the retention period has expired. This is because the backup data is still being retained in the vault, even though it is no longer being actively backed up.

If you can't see any expiration date for the last backup, it may be because the backup data is still being retained in the vault. When you stop backup on a VM and retain backup data, the backup data is retained until the retention period expires or until you manually delete it. If you have deleted the VM after retaining the backup data, the backup data will still be retained in the vault until the retention period expires. Once the retention period has expired, the backup data will be permanently deleted from the vault and you will no longer be able to see it.

PRACHI PATIL 0 Reputation points

2024-03-28T10:40:11.4566667+00:00

@SadiqhAhmed-MSFT Thank you for explanation.
So does that mean expiry time that I can see in screenshot and retention date are different ?
If expiry date is not a date when it will get deleted permanently then where I can see the date when it will get deleted permanently? Write now i can't see which policy applied to it while taking backup

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-28T18:07:10.09+00:00

@PRACHI PATIL Yes, the expiry time and retention date are different. The expiry time is the time when the recovery point will expire and become eligible for deletion. The retention date is the date until which the recovery point will be retained.

To see the date when a recovery point will be deleted permanently, you can check the retention range set in the backup policy. The expired recovery points (except the most recent recovery point) are cleaned according to the retention range set in the backup policy. If you delete a recovery point manually, the backed-up data will be retained for 14 days in the soft deleted state. After completing the delete operation, the recovery point will be permanently deleted after the retention range set in the backup policy.

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 37,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-03-29T20:35:08.79+00:00

@PRACHI PATIL Just checking in to see if you got a chance to see my response and if it helped, I would request you to "Accept Answer and Upvote" so that the relevancy of this post will improve when anyone in the community search for a similar query.
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