Azure-Hosted and On-Premises Backup Options Blur

• Azure Backup is increasingly Microsoft’s focus for backup of hosted and on-premises systems.
• It can offer theoretically unlimited scale for backup storage.
• Organizations should avoid double-licensing protected endpoints.

Azure Backup is a Microsoft-hosted, subscription-based service that can enable long-term protection and retention of data from Windows Server and Linux systems, with new SQL Server and SAP HANA protection capabilities available for Azure VMs. Organizations should understand their use cases, and the specific capabilities Azure Backup offers for each, before deciding which option they should license and deploy.

Hosted Backup as a Service

Azure Backup provides backup to Azure storage, to disk-based storage on-premises, or to a combination of both. It is now the primary focus of Microsoft’s backup strategy.

Backup is the process of storing a system’s data over time, enabling restoration of the system back to any of several recovery points. Backup systems normally can capture OS state (such as the Windows Registry), file systems, and application databases. While backup was historically performed to durable tape media, backup data is now often stored on disk-based storage instead.