Subhash_athreya announces the general availability of Azure Backup’s vaulted support for Azure Files Premium (SSD) shares, describing enhanced data protection, ransomware resilience, and actionable guidance for enterprise IT and developers.

General Availability of Azure Backup Vaulted Support for Azure Files Premium (SSD) Shares

Author: Subhash_athreya

Overview

Microsoft announces that Azure Backup now provides vaulted backup support for Azure Files Premium (SSD) shares, a critical advancement for organizations with mission-critical workloads on Azure Files. This feature allows IT administrators and developers to safeguard data using immutable and offsite backups, providing resilience against ransomware, accidental deletions, and regional outages.

Key Features and Benefits

  • Enterprise-Grade Data Protection: Azure Backup now secures Premium (SSD) file shares at the same level as standard (HDD), supporting production scale workloads.
  • Immutable and Offsite Backups: Defends against ransomware, accidental deletion, and region-wide disruptions with secure, untouchable copies held in geo-redundant storage.
  • Long-Term Retention and Granular Restores: Retain data for compliance/regulatory needs and recover exactly what is needed at point-in-time.
  • Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS): Enables cross-region restore, allowing business continuity even if the primary Azure region is unavailable.
  • Compliance and Security: Supports scenarios requiring strict data durability, supporting financial, healthcare, and other regulated industries.

Customer Perspective:

Implementing Azure Backup for our premium file shares has significantly enhanced our data protection strategy… The seamless integration and scalability makes it essential for our cloud infrastructure.
—Swisscom

How It Works

  1. Cross-Region Recovery: Restore data to a different Azure region as part of disaster recovery planning using Recovery Services vault with GRS.
  2. 3-2-1 Backup Rule Compliance: Ensures three copies of data across two types of storage, with one offsite (remote region). Aligns with industry best practices for backup and recovery.
  3. Security and Ransomware Protection: Recovery Services vault maintains an untouched copy isolated from production, allowing organizations to restore from the last safe backup and resume operations after incidents.

Use Case Scenarios

  • Profile Data in VDI Environments:
    Protect persistent FSLogix profiles for Azure Virtual Desktop, Citrix, or VMware Horizon, ensuring critical user data is resilient to attack or error.

  • Application Storage:
    Safeguard file shares supporting Windows-based enterprise applications (SQL Server, ERP systems, custom line-of-business apps).

  • Cloud-Native Workloads:
    Enable backup and disaster recovery for legacy NAS-to-cloud migrations, especially for SMB workloads on AKS or similar.

  • Hybrid Deployments with Azure File Sync:
    Extend resilient protection to hybrid environments, covering both on-premises and cloud-resident data.

Getting Started

  1. Create a Recovery Services vault: The vault stores and manages your backups.
  2. Create a backup policy: Define backup frequency and retention according to business requirements.
  3. Select storage account and file shares: Back up all or select file shares as needed for critical data.

Tip: Selecting the vault tier in policy settings enhances the security posture, provides managed offsite backup, and supports business continuity.

Further Resources

Conclusion

With the general availability of vaulted backup support for Premium (SSD) shares, Azure Backup empowers organizations to enhance their data durability, meet compliance standards, and defend against modern cyber threats. This capability is a significant advancement for enterprises leveraging Azure for critical workloads.

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