3.1.4.3. Configure Azure Backup for Azure Files

💡 First Principle: Azure Backup provides a native, integrated solution to protect Azure file shares by creating regular, policy-driven recovery points (snapshots), ensuring data durability and enabling granular, point-in-time recovery.

Scenario: Your organization stores critical project documents on an Azure File Share. You need to configure daily backups for this share, retaining backups for 90 days. If a file is accidentally deleted or corrupted, you must be able to restore just that specific file without affecting the rest of the share.

What It Is: Azure Backup for Azure Files protects your cloud-based file shares by creating regular recovery points.

Backup Policy Components:

• Schedule: Specifies when backups are taken (e.g., daily, multiple times per day), automating snapshot creation.
• Retention Range: Defines how long each recovery point (snapshot) is kept, supporting both short-term and long-term retention.

Configuring Backup for Azure File Shares:

1. Associate with a Recovery Services vault: In the Azure portal, select or create a Recovery Services vault.
2. Register the Storage Account: Add the storage account containing your file share to the vault.
3. Select File Shares: Choose the file shares to protect.
4. Apply a Backup Policy: Assign an existing policy or create a new one.
5. Enable Backup: Confirm and enable protection.

Restore Process:

• Full Share Restore: Restore the entire file share to a previous recovery point.
• Item-Level Restore: Recover individual files or folders from a chosen snapshot, minimizing data loss and downtime.

⚠️ Common Pitfall: Assuming that the storage account's redundancy (e.g., GRS) is a substitute for backups. Redundancy protects against hardware failure, but it does not protect against accidental deletion or data corruption, which backups do.

Key Trade-Offs:

• Retention Period vs. Storage Cost: Longer retention periods provide a larger window for recovery but increase the storage costs associated with retaining snapshots.

Reflection Question: How does configuring Azure Backup for Azure Files with a defined backup policy fundamentally ensure data durability and recoverability, enabling automated, policy-driven backups and granular item-level restores for cloud-based file data?