Azure Backup Improved

In keeping with the near constant stream of improvements to all aspects of Azure, Microsoft has just announced some updates to Azure Backup.

Previously, there were several limits, including;

• Azure Backup uses only one single retention policy to back up the data. This was limiting,
• The number of backup copies is limited to 120. Daily backups, therefore only cover last 3 months.
• Azure Backup does not provide the option of sending the data over network bandwidth alone to the end customer. Another limit.

But today, MS announced some major changes to Azure Backup.

• You can now set multiple retention policies on backup data. The impact of this is that backup data can now be stored for multiple years by maintaining more backup copies near term, and less backup copies as the backup data becomes aged.
• The number of backup copies that can be stored at Azure is increased to 366 – a 3 fold increase. 
• Azure Backup integrates with the Azure Import service to send the initial backup data to Azure data center. This capability will enable the customers to ship the initial backup data through disk to the nearest Azure data center. This can be a significant benefit if you want to backup a LARGE amount of fairly static data.

The latest update also fixes some older issues, like not being able to backup >  850GB, etc.

del.icio.us Tags: Azure,Azure Backup