Protect Windows Server 2016 and vCenter/ESXi 6.5 using Azure Backup Server

Azure Backup Server is a cloud-first backup solution that helps in protecting business critical applications as well as virtual machines running on Hyper-V or VMware VMs. With the latest release of Azure Backup Server, you can protect applications such as SQL 2016, SharePoint 2016, Exchange 2016, and Windows Server 2016, locally to disk for short term retention as well as to cloud for long term retention. Azure Backup Server also introduces Modern Backup Storage technology that helps in reducing overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by providing savings on storage and faster backups. Azure Backup Server also guards your critical data not only against accidental deletion but also against various security threats such as ransomware. You also get free restores from cloud recovery points, thereby further reducing backup TCO.

Native Integration of Azure Backup Server with Windows Server 2016

Azure Backup Server natively integrates with Windows Server 2016 capabilities to provide more secure, reliable and efficient backups.

Value Propositions

1. Efficient: Azure Backup Server’s Modern Backup Storage technology leverages Windows Server 2016 capabilities such as ReFS Block Cloning, VHDX, and Deduplication to reduce storage consumption and improve performance. This leads to 3X faster disk backups and 50% reduction in on premise storage consumption. Azure Backup Server’s workload-aware backup storage technology gives you the flexibility to choose appropriate storage for a given data source type. This flexibility optimizes overall storage utilization and thus reduces backup TCO further.
2. Reliable: Azure Backup Server uses RCT (the native change tracking in Hyper-V), which removes the need for time-consuming consistency checks. Azure Backup Server also uses RCT for incremental backup. It identifies VHD changes for virtual machines, and transfers only those blocks that are indicated by the change tracker. With Hyper-V building this tracking feature natively within the platform, you can avoid painful consistency checks that would have led to restarting backups.
3. Secure: Azure Backup Server’s ability to do backup and recovery of Shielded VMs securely helps in maintaining security in backups. Azure Backup Server can protect Shielded VMs and maintain the security in the backups as well. Azure Backup Server’s security features are built on three principles – Prevention, Alerting, and Recovery – to enable organizations increase preparedness against ransomware attacks and equip them with a robust backup solution.
4. Flexible: Windows Server 2016 comes with Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), that eliminates the need for expensive shared storage and related complexities. Azure Backup Server can backup Hyper-V VMs on Windows Server 2016 deployed on Storage Spaces Direct. Azure Backup Server can also auto protect SQL instances and VMware VMs to cloud as well. Upgrading Azure Backup Server from an older release is simple and will not disrupt your production servers. After upgrading to latest version of Azure Backup Server and upgrading agents on production servers, the backups will continue without rebooting production servers.

Support for vCenter and ESXi 6.5

VMware VM backup with Azure Backup Server was announced as part of Update 1 of the previous release. There are a couple of enhancements with respect to VMware VM protection with the new version of Azure Backup Server:

1. Azure Backup Server comes with support for vCenter and ESXi 6.5 along with support for 5.5 and 6.0
2. Azure Backup Server comes with the added feature of auto protecting VMware VMs to cloud. If VMware VMs are added to a folder, they will be automatically protected to disk and cloud.

If Azure Backup Server is installed on Windows Server 2016, protection of VMware VMs is in preview mode until VMware releases support for VDDK 6.5 for Windows Server 2016.