Can the cache folder for Azure Backup Agent be an azure temporary disk?
Azure backup agent cache – Use temprorary disk
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Just had a talk to a support engineer and he confirmed that it's currently not possible to use wildcards other than in file extensions.
I explained my use case and remarked that it was a useful feature.
Added a user voice item to track this, votes are welcome:
To work around it, at the moment the only option is to use powershell to search for folders to exclude and then update the backup schedule. Or to include updating the backup schedule as part of your deployment scripts/pipeline.
I read that Azure backup takes snapshots and then uploads them to the vault.
You are right, Azure backup will take snapshots first, then upload them to backup vault.
how using 'Azure backup' to backup a VM is different from taking the snapshots of OS Disk and data disk of azure VM via "az vm" cli commands?
The biggest difference is that, we can use Azure Backup to restore VM directly. If we use snapshot and want to restore VM, we have to use snapshot to create OSdisk and then use this OSdisk to create new VM.
By the way, we can set backup jobs in Azure Backup, so Azure can run backup by backup policy. If we use snapshot, we should do it manually.
What exactly is the vault here?
The vault same as storage account, but we can't find it in our portal, and can't migrate backup data, we can manage the vault via Azure Backup.
Which is better cost wise, azure backup or osdisk snapshots?
For now, we can use CLI 2.0 command az snapshot create to create snapshot, but we can't use this to snapshot some on-prem resource.
If we just want on-time backup of Azure VM, and we can use PowerShell to restore it, I guess we can use snapshot.
If we want to daily backup of VM, I think we should use Azure Backup.
About cost, Azure backup and snapshot charge for the usage of storage account.
using azure backup or taking a snapshot of OS disk/Data disks. Is there an advantage of using one over the other?
In my opinion, take snapshot used for restore VM to one time, for example, I want to do some configure change, before that I take a snapshot of it, then change the configure, if it false I can restore VM with the snapshot.
Are the Snapshots of OS disk taken in Azure, global in nature or are they in any way associated with a region? If a region is down, do they become unavailable?
we can choose SKU for snapshot, Premium_LRS, Standard_LRS. so you are right, if the region is down, the snapshot will unavailable.
In the azure portal, snapshots, what is "snapshot state"? Why is the snapshot state "Unattached" for me even after spinning off a VM from the snapshot disk?
We can't attach the snapshot to Azure VM, so the state is unattached. I have create a disk from the snapshot, and the state is unattached.
Best Answer
Yes you can change the location of cache to a temporary disk (the D drive in Azure VM). Just remember that this disk is not persistent so you can loose data there anytime. To do that, follow those steps to change the cache location:
1- Stop the Backup engine by executing the following command in an elevated command prompt: PS C:> Net stop obengine
2- Do not move the files. Instead, copy the cache space folder to a different drive with sufficient space. The original cache space can be removed after confirming the backups are working with the new cache space
3- Update the following registry entries with the path to the new cache space folder
Registry path : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Azure Backup\Config Registry Key : ScratchLocation
Value : type your New cache folder location
Registry path : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Azure Backup\Config\CloudBackupProvider
Registry Key : ScratchLocation Value : type your New cache folder location
4- Re-start the Backup engine by executing the following command in an elevated command prompt: PS C:> Net start obengine
Once the backup creation is successfully completed in the new cache location, you can remove the original cache folder.