Azure Backup enables you to back up and restore Windows Server infrastructure as a service (IaaS), including full virtual machine (VM) recovery and file-level recovery.
Scenario
Contoso is a mid-sized financial services company based in London, with a branch in New York. Most of its IT environment runs on-premises with Windows Server, including virtualized workloads on Windows Server 2016 hosts. The Contoso IT team is in the process of migrating servers to Windows Server 2025.
The Contoso IT director realizes that the operational model is outdated, with little automation and a reliance on legacy technologies. The Contoso IT engineering team begins exploring Microsoft Azure capabilities to see if Azure services can help modernize the current operational model through automation and virtualization.
As part of the initial design, the Contoso IT team has asked you, as the lead systems engineer and server administrator, to set up a proof-of-concept environment. This environment should verify whether Azure services can help modernize the IT infrastructure and meet the company’s goals.
The company still uses tape backups for restoration and disaster recovery. As part of the transition to Azure, it must consider alternative backup and restore procedures.
In this module, you will learn about Azure Backup, then how to implement Recovery Services vaults and Azure backup policies. You will also learn how to restore Windows IaaS virtual machines, perform backups and restores of on-premises workloads, and manage Azure VM backups.
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Describe Azure Backup
- Implement Azure Recovery Services vaults
- Implement Azure backup policies
- Restore Windows IaaS virtual machines
- Perform file and folder restores
- Perform backups and restores of on-premises workloads
- Explain how to manage Azure VM backups with Azure Backup
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this module, you should have knowledge and experience in the following technologies:
- Managing Windows Server operating systems and workloads in an on-premises environment, including Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), Domain Name System (DNS), Distributed File System (DFS), Microsoft Hyper-V, and file and storage services
- Common Windows Server management tools
- Core Microsoft technologies for compute, storage, networking, and virtualization
- On-premises resilience technologies based on Windows Server for compute and storage
- Implementing and managing IaaS services in Azure
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Security-related technologies (firewalls, encryption, multi-factor authentication)
- PowerShell scripting
- Automation and monitoring
