Tutorial: Reconfigure backup for data sources in an alternate vault

Azure Business Continuity Center allows you to suspend backup for a datasource in one vault and reconfigure in another without losing existing recovery points. This flexibility helps in the following scenarios:

• Change the backup policy or vault redundancy without impacting the old recovery points.
• Modify the backup policy and retention for immutable vaults.
• Enable the private endpoint and/ or Customer Manage Keys (CMKs) on your backup.

This tutorial describes how to reconfigure backup for data sources in Azure Business Continuity Center by switching to an alternate Recovery Services vault, called re-registration. The feature is available for all datasources supported in Recovery Services vault.

Prerequisites

Before you start reconfiguring backup for data sources in an alternate vault, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:

• Review the existing policies, vault redundancy, and security settings of the data sources for which you want to reconfigure backup.
• Create a new vault with Customer Managed Keys (CMK) and private endpoints enabled, or use an existing vault where both settings are already configured. These security features are then applied to new backups.
• Unregister the underlying storage accounts for the Mercury workloads (SQL database in Azure VM, SAP database in Azure VM, Azure Files). Backup reconfiguration for the datasources isn't allowed until the associated storage accounts are unregistered.

Suspend the active backup for a datasource on Recovery Services vault

To suspend the active backup for a datasource on Recovery Services vault, follow these steps:

1. Go to Business Continuity Center, and then select Protection inventory > Protected items.

   

2. On the Protected items pane, select a protected item from the list.

3. On the selected protected item pane, select the associated item from the list.

4. On the associated item pane, select Stop backup.

   

5. On the Stop Backup pane, choose the Stop backup level as Retain backup data from the dropdown, enter a reason, and then select Stop backup.

   Note

   Backup items in soft-deleted state are also permitted for reconfiguration in an alternate vault. For Immutable vaults you can only choose Retain backup data as per policy or Retain forever. For nonimmutable vaults, you can also choose to stop protection and delete backup data.

   

After the backup stops, the last backup status changes to Warning (Backup disabled).

Unregister the underlying storage account for the protected datasources in the Recovery Services vault

To unregister the underlying storage accounts for the protected Mercury datasources, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Recovery Services vault from where you want to unregister the underlying datasources, and then select Manage > Backup Infrastructure.

2. On the Backup Infrastructure pane, select Workload in Azure VM for SQL or SAP database in Azure VM.

   

   For Azure Files, select Azure Storage Accounts > Storage Accounts > the more options icon corresponding to the required container, and then select Unregister.

   

3. On the Protected Servers pane, select the more options icon corresponding to the required container, and then select Unregister.

Reconfigure backup in an alternate Recovery Services vault

To reconfigure backup in an alternate Recovery Services vault, follow these steps:

1. Go to Business Continuity Center, and then select + Configure protection.

   

   You can also go to the new Recovery Services vault where you want to reconfigure backup, and then select + Backup.

2. On the Configure protection pane, select Resources managed by as Azure, Datasource type for reconfiguring backup, and Solution as Azure Backup, and then select Continue.

   

3. On the Start: Configure Backup pane, under Vault, click Select vault.

   

4. On the Select a Vault pane, select a vault from the list with which you want to reconfigure backup, and then click Select.

   Note

   Ensure that the vault you select has the necessary configuration to meet your new requirements – including redundancy, private endpoints, customer-managed keys (CMK), and so on. If you don't have an alternate vault created, create a new vault.

5. On the Configure Backup pane, select the required backup policy, resource for backup, select a datasource (for example, Virtual Machine name) for protection by selecting Add, and set the other backup configurations as applicable to initiate the reconfiguration. Learn how to configure protection for datasources.

   

After the configuration is complete, the new recovery points in the new vault appear.

Cost implications for backup reconfiguration in an alternate vault

The implications of reconfiguring backup for data sources in an alternate vault incurs the following charges:

• Old recovery points in the previous vault incur storage cost until they're purged as per the retention policy.
• New recovery points in the new vault also incur storage cost.

Related content

• Reconfigure backups that are in soft deleted state.
• About Immutable vault for Azure Backup.
• About Multi-user authorization using Resource Guard.
• Encrypt backup data by using customer-managed keys.