Management and Backup

Azure services can assist and enhance on-premises IT operations in areas such as disaster recovery and job automation. Multiple Azure IT management services can be purchased in a bundle as a less expensive alternative to subscribing to them separately. (See the sidebar “Operations Management Suite“.) Azure provides the Import Export service to speed data migration into and out of Azure. The Web-based Azure management portal allows IT staff and developers to manage Azure resources.

New Azure services are often introduced and typically remain in a 50% reduced-price preview state with no service level agreement for three months to a year before becoming generally available for production. (See the illustration “Management and Backup Services Dates“.)

Site Recovery

Azure Site Recovery (previously named Hyper-V Recovery Manager) replicates virtual machines (VMs) to Azure from an on-premises or hosted installation, enabling off-site disaster recovery without a costly and complex secondary location. It can use Windows Server Hyper-V replication or Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) to replicate VMs. Site Recovery can be used for replicating VMs in private-to-private, private-to-hosted, and private- or hosted-to-Azure scenarios. The tool can monitor service availability and orchestrate recovery in the event of a service outage or a disaster.