VM Snapshot Retention

For cloud-native snapshots, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure retains the number of latest restore points defined in backup scheduling settings as described in section Creating VM Backup Policies.

During every successful backup session, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure creates a new restore point. If Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure detects that the number of restore points in the snapshot chain exceeds the retention limit, it removes the earliest restore point from the chain. For more information on the snapshot deletion process, see Microsoft Docs.

Important

Due to the CBT mechanism limitations, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure permanently retains in the snapshot chain 2 cloud-native snapshots of each processed Azure VM for those snapshots that are used to create image-level backups. To learn how the CBT mechanism works, see Changed Block Tracking.

Notes

Consider that Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure does not apply retention policy settings to cloud-native snapshots created manually. To learn how to remove these snapshots, see sections Managing VM Data and Managing Azure Files Data.

Due to Microsoft Azure limitations, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure does not support retention of locked Azure VM snapshots. For more information on the lock feature, see Microsoft Docs.