Backup in Remote Location is one of the requirements for Disaster Recovery and keep safe the data of your company. Today it's not enough to keep Backups of but also to keep backups out of your office.
You can find lot of services and applications to take backups offline but you must take consider multiple factors to find the right solution for your environment.
One of the best options is to use Altaro VM Backup with Azure Blob Storage for your Offsite Backups.
The reason is the low price of the Azure Blob Storage combine with Altaro Augmented Inline Deduplication
So today i would like to show you how can configure it and why is one of the best options that you can use.
Configure Azure Cloud Storage
First of all must configure the Storage in Azure Portal that will take backups from Altaro VM Backup
- Login to Azure portal
- Click in Storage Accounts.
- Click Add button
- Give a name in resource group and in Storage account name.
- Change the Account king from Storage V2 (general purposes V2) to Storage (general purposes V1)
- We choose Storage (general purposes V1) because of the lowest price compare it with Storage V2 (general purposes V2). The difference between the Storage accounts except from the cost is that Storage (general purposes V1) may not has the latest features from Storage V2 (general purposes V2). If you would like more details you read the article from Microsoft Azure storage account overview
- Leave all the other options default
- Click Review+Create
- Click Create
- Go back in Storage Accounts
- Select the storage Account which create.
- From Blob Services select Blobs
- Click in Container.
- Give a name and select OK
Configure on-premise Backup location
After create successful the Azure Storage we must configure in Altaro VM Backup the Backup Location for On-premises backups
- Select Backup Location
- Click Add Backup Location
- Select Network Path (LAN Only)
- Type all the details that need to connect the Backup Location with Altaro
- Transfer Virtual Machines in Backup Location
Configure an offsite backup location in Azure Cloud Storage
Now it's time to configure the Azure Cloud Storage as offsite backup location
- Next to Backup Location click in Add Offsite Location
- Select Cloud Backup to an Azure Storage Account.Click Next
- Now we must find the Connection String to connect in Azure Storage
- Go in Azure Portal
- Click in Storage Accounts from the left side menu.
- Select the Storage Account
- Click in Access Keys
- Copy/Paste the Connection String in the Altaro Offsite Backup Location and click Test Now
- After verify successful the connection you can drag & drop Virtual Machines in Offsite Location
Take backup in on-premise
- Go in Backup from the left side menu
- Select the virtual machines that you have add in on-premise backup location
- Click Take Backup
- Wait until finish
Take backup in azure cloud storage
- Go in Offsite Copies from the left side menu
- Select the virtual machines that you have add in offsite backup location
- Click Take Offsite Copy
- Wait until finish
Restore Virtual Machine from azure cloud storage
- Go in Restore from the left side menu
- Select Restore VM as clone.Click Next
- Select the Azure location to restore from. Click Next
- As you can see when you will proceed to restore from Azure Cloud storage will trigger egress and request charges.
- Lets see how will be charge when the restore will be finish.
- Select the VM that you want to restore from Azure.
- I will proceed to restore the 3 VM's.
- Click Next
- Select the path in HYPER-V Host that you want to Restore. Click Restore
-
Base on your Internet Connection it will take some time to restore it.
Cost savings with Altaro VM Backup and Azure Cloud Storage
After backup VM's in Azure Blob Storage we spend only 0.03€ for 3 Virtual Machines.
Think about that this is the first Offsite Backup which include most of the data.
From now on will take only the changes and the cost will be lower than this.
If you click in Cost Management + Billing from the left side you will see the Costs by resources
After click on statistics you will see a table with Costs by resources.
So let's compare costs between Storage V2 (general purposes V2) and Storage (general purposes V1)
I take backups of 3 VM in Storage V2 (general purposes V2) which is the bck001 and i take the same backup in bck002 which is Storage (general purposes V1)
You can see the results
In Storage (general purposes V1) we spend only 0.03€
For backup purposes Storage (general purposes V1) is the best solution to keep low costs.
Cost savings after Restore Virtual Machines
In paragraph Restore Virtual Machine from azure cloud storage i get a warning that will trigger egress and request charges if you try to restore from Azure cloud storage.
Click in Cost Management + Billing from the left side you will see the Costs by resources.
Let's check how much spend after restore the 3 VM's.
If you click in diagram you will see details in table format like the printscreen
The cost was 2.29€ to Full Restore the Virtual Machines and 0.03€ for the Offsite Backup.
So the total cost was 2.32€
It's very cheap if you note that it's not a daily task to Restore 3 Virtual Machines. It will not happen very often.
But wait a minute!!
Why we spend only 0.03€ when we have 3 Virtual Machines x 60 GB backed up?
Base on Augmented Inline Deduplication technology that use Altaro dedupe data not only per VM but across all the backed-up workloads. This is more efficient for storage because save lot of space and more quicker for backups.
As IT Pro when need to take a decision we must be very careful with serious factors like costs for implementation and costs that will have in the future.
Altaro VM Backup with Azure Storage can give us a very good solution with very low cost.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter , Google+ or Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at info@askme4tech.com.
Have a nice day!!
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