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Create Azure Recovery Services backup policies using REST API

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The steps to create a backup policy for an Azure Recovery Services vault are outlined in the policy REST API document. Let's use this document as a reference to create a policy for Azure VM backup.

Create or update a policy

To create or update an Azure Backup policy, use the following PUT operation

PUT https://management.azure.com/Subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/{vaultName}/backupPolicies/{policyName}?api-version=2019-05-13

The {policyName} and {vaultName} are provided in the URI. Additional information is provided in the request body.

Create the request body

For example, to create a policy for Azure VM backup, following are the components of the request body.

Name Required Type Description
properties True ProtectionPolicy:AzureIaaSVMProtectionPolicy ProtectionPolicyResource properties
tags Object Resource tags

For the complete list of definitions in the request body, refer to the backup policy REST API document.

Example request body

The following request body defines a backup policy for Azure VM backups.

The policy says:

  • Take a weekly backup every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday at 10:00 AM Pacific Standard Time.
  • Retain the backups taken on every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday for one week.
  • Retain the backups taken on every first Wednesday and third Thursday of a month for two months (overrides the previous retention conditions, if any).
  • Retain the backups taken on fourth Monday and fourth Thursday in February and November for four years (overrides the previous retention conditions, if any).
{
  "properties": {
    "backupManagementType": "AzureIaasVM",
    "timeZone": "Pacific Standard Time",
    "schedulePolicy": {
      "schedulePolicyType": "SimpleSchedulePolicy",
      "scheduleRunFrequency": "Weekly",
      "scheduleRunTimes": [
        "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
      ],
      "scheduleRunDays": [
        "Monday",
        "Wednesday",
        "Thursday"
      ]
    },
    "retentionPolicy": {
      "retentionPolicyType": "LongTermRetentionPolicy",
      "weeklySchedule": {
        "daysOfTheWeek": [
          "Monday",
          "Wednesday",
          "Thursday"
        ],
        "retentionTimes": [
          "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
        ],
        "retentionDuration": {
          "count": 1,
          "durationType": "Weeks"
        }
      },
      "monthlySchedule": {
        "retentionScheduleFormatType": "Weekly",
        "retentionScheduleWeekly": {
          "daysOfTheWeek": [
            "Wednesday",
            "Thursday"
          ],
          "weeksOfTheMonth": [
            "First",
            "Third"
          ]
        },
        "retentionTimes": [
          "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
        ],
        "retentionDuration": {
          "count": 2,
          "durationType": "Months"
        }
      },
      "yearlySchedule": {
        "retentionScheduleFormatType": "Weekly",
        "monthsOfYear": [
          "February",
          "November"
        ],
        "retentionScheduleWeekly": {
          "daysOfTheWeek": [
            "Monday",
            "Thursday"
          ],
          "weeksOfTheMonth": [
            "Fourth"
          ]
        },
        "retentionTimes": [
          "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
        ],
        "retentionDuration": {
          "count": 4,
          "durationType": "Years"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Important

The time formats for schedule and retention support only DateTime. They don't support Time format alone.

Responses

The backup policy creation/update is a asynchronous operation. It means this operation creates another operation that needs to be tracked separately.

It returns two responses: 202 (Accepted) when another operation is created, and then 200 (OK) when that operation completes.

Name Type Description
200 OK Protection PolicyResource OK
202 Accepted Accepted

Example responses

Once you submit the PUT request for policy creation or updating, the initial response is 202 (Accepted) with a location header or Azure-async-header.

HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted
Pragma: no-cache
Retry-After: 60
Azure-AsyncOperation: https://management.azure.com/Subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/SwaggerTestRg/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/testVault/backupPolicies/testPolicy1/operations/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000?api-version=2016-06-01
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
x-ms-request-id: db785be0-bb20-4598-bc9f-70c9428b170b
x-ms-client-request-id: e1f94eef-9b2d-45c4-85b8-151e12b07d03; e1f94eef-9b2d-45c4-85b8-151e12b07d03
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
x-ms-ratelimit-remaining-subscription-writes: 1199
x-ms-correlation-request-id: db785be0-bb20-4598-bc9f-70c9428b170b
x-ms-routing-request-id: SOUTHINDIA:20180521T073907Z:db785be0-bb20-4598-bc9f-70c9428b170b
Cache-Control: no-cache
Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 07:39:06 GMT
Location: https://management.azure.com/Subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/SwaggerTestRg/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/testVault/backupPolicies/testPolicy1/operationResults/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000?api-version=2019-05-13
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Then track the resulting operation using the location header or Azure-AsyncOperation header with a simple GET command.

GET https://management.azure.com/Subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/SwaggerTestRg/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/testVault/backupPolicies/testPolicy1/operationResults/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000?api-version=2019-05-13

Once the operation completes, it returns 200 (OK) with the policy content in the response body.

{
  "id": "/Subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/SwaggerTestRg/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/testVault/backupPolicies/testPolicy1",
  "name": "testPolicy1",
  "type": "Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/backupPolicies",
  "properties": {
    "backupManagementType": "AzureIaasVM",
    "schedulePolicy": {
      "schedulePolicyType": "SimpleSchedulePolicy",
      "scheduleRunFrequency": "Weekly",
      "scheduleRunDays": [
        "Monday",
        "Wednesday",
        "Thursday"
      ],
      "scheduleRunTimes": [
        "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
      ],
      "scheduleWeeklyFrequency": 0
    },
    "retentionPolicy": {
      "retentionPolicyType": "LongTermRetentionPolicy",
      "weeklySchedule": {
        "daysOfTheWeek": [
          "Monday",
          "Wednesday",
          "Thursday"
        ],
        "retentionTimes": [
          "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
        ],
        "retentionDuration": {
          "count": 1,
          "durationType": "Weeks"
        }
      },
      "monthlySchedule": {
        "retentionScheduleFormatType": "Weekly",
        "retentionScheduleWeekly": {
          "daysOfTheWeek": [
            "Wednesday",
            "Thursday"
          ],
          "weeksOfTheMonth": [
            "First",
            "Third"
          ]
        },
        "retentionTimes": [
          "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
        ],
        "retentionDuration": {
          "count": 2,
          "durationType": "Months"
        }
      },
      "yearlySchedule": {
        "retentionScheduleFormatType": "Weekly",
        "monthsOfYear": [
          "February",
          "November"
        ],
        "retentionScheduleWeekly": {
          "daysOfTheWeek": [
            "Monday",
            "Thursday"
          ],
          "weeksOfTheMonth": [
            "Fourth"
          ]
        },
        "retentionTimes": [
          "2018-01-24T10:00:00Z"
        ],
        "retentionDuration": {
          "count": 4,
          "durationType": "Years"
        }
      }
    },
    "timeZone": "Pacific Standard Time",
    "protectedItemsCount": 0
  }
}

If a policy is already being used to protect an item, any update in the policy will result in modifying protection for all such associated items.

Next steps

Enable protection for an unprotected Azure VM.

For more information on the Azure Backup REST APIs, see the following documents: