This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Performing Backup

With Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure, you can protect data in the following ways:

  • Create cloud-native snapshots of Azure VMs

A cloud-native snapshot includes point-in-time snapshots of virtual disks attached to the processed Azure VM. Snapshots of virtual disks are taken using native Microsoft Azure capabilities.

  • Create image-level backups of Azure VMs

In addition to cloud-native snapshots, you can protect your Azure VMs with image-level backups. An image-level backup captures the whole image of the processed Azure VM (including OS data, application data and so on) at a specific point in time. The backup is saved as multiple files to a backup repository in the native Veeam format.

  • Create image-level backups of Azure SQL databases

An image-level backup of an Azure SQL database captures the whole image of the processed database (including tables, constraints, indexes and actual data) at a specific point of time. The backup is saved as multiple files to a backup repository in the native Veeam format.

  • Create cloud-native snapshots of Azure file shares

A cloud-native snapshot includes point-in-time snapshots of base files, metadata and files in the system properties of the processed Azure file share. Snapshots of these files are taken using native Microsoft Azure capabilities.

Note

Consider that if you delete a file share from Microsoft Azure, the snapshots of this file share will be deleted as well. To protect your snapshots from accidental deletion, you can use the file share soft delete option. For more information on the soft delete option for Azure file shares, see Microsoft Docs.

To schedule data protection tasks to run automatically, create backup policies. For Azure VMs and Azure file shares residing in any of the regions added to the backup policies, you can also take cloud-native snapshots manually when needed — for more information, see Creating VM Snapshots Manually and Creating File Share Snapshots Manually. For Azure SQL databases, you can also perform backups manually when needed — for more information, see Creating SQL Backups Manually.