Backup Tips on SQL Azure

Based on my Study i will list some tips and notes related to the backup on SQL Azure, I will be Happy if you ٍshared your knowledge, experiences and your review in the comment.

SQL AZURE BACKUP

• Backup Concept: Backup on SQL Azure DB is taken Automatically and the first backup is taken after the DB Provisioning, however, you can’t download this backup or doing a manual restore from it.

• Backup Storage: Microsoft support us with free storage based on the DB size on Services Tier selected, and it gives us 2 MAX size of the DB size, Azure SQL Database backups are stored in geo-replicated blob storage (RA-GRS storage type)
• Reaching Backup Storage Limit: at this time, we have two solutions (1) Reduce the retention period by Contacting the Support team and this time you will not pay an extra charge (2) Pay for an extra backup build at the stander Read Access Geographically redundant storage rate 
• Archiving data:In case if we have data archiving, we have two solutions to archive it on azure (1) Export the DB as BACPAC file and save it on Azure blob storage (2) Use Long-Term-backup-retention (LTR)to the Azure backup vault and you can keep it to 10 years
• Backup retention period: It is depending on services tier model (basic = 7 days, stander and premium = 35 days) however we have “Long Term backup retention” for 10 years to an azure backup vault this means the Azure replicated the backup cross regions, and in case of the region down you can restore the backup in another region, but this feature replicated the FULL and DIFF backup only. This meaning the RPO will be one hour because the DIFF taking every one Hour
• Azure backup RTO and RPO: Microsoft Support Point in Time Recovery with 12 Hours as RTO and 5 minutes as RPO for the in-Region backups
• Disaster: If you delete the DB you can restore it on the retention period time based on your Services tier For Example if your DB in basic service tier and you delete the DB you can restore the DB in 7 days after this you will not find your backup , If you delete the server all backup will be deleted and you will not have any option to restore your DB
• Manual backup:  There is no Manual backup on Azure SQL Database but we can take backup from the data and Structure database using another way called BACPAC and we can do Export for the BACPAC file on azure storage account using Azure portal, PowerShell and we can do the same to on-Premises system using sqlpackage.exe , also we can export BACPAC file using SSMS SQL Server Management studio
• When using the Azure Backup service to store backups of virtual machines, which container is required? Recovery Services Vault
• What is Azure Backup Explorer Today, we are pleased to share the preview of Backup Explorer. Backup Explorer is a built-in Azure Monitor Workbook enabling you to have a single pane of glass for performing real-time monitoring across your entire backup estate on Azure. It comes completely out-of-the-box, with no additional costs, via native integration with : T Azure Resource Graph and Azure Workbooks. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/backup-explorer-now-available-in-preview/?WT.mc_id=linkedin-social-thmaure

What is Azure Backup Explorer

Azure Storage Explorer Tool: It can be used from on Premises server or your local PC to view and, upload and download files or folders on storage account it is fantastic tool. Download it from HERE and it is working on operating system (Windows, MacOS, Linux). Also you can find the same services on portal Storage account (Storage Explorer (preview))

What are the benefits from Azure backup Explorer

•  At-scale views: With Backup Explorer, monitoring is no longer limited to a Recovery Services vault. You can get an aggregated view of your entire estate from a backup perspective. This includes not only information on your backup items, but also resources that are not configured for backup
• Deep drill-downs – You can quickly switch between aggregated views and highly granular data for any of your backup-related artifacts, be it backup items, jobs, alerts or policies
• Quick troubleshooting and actionability – The at-scale views and deep drill-downs are designed to aid you in getting to the root cause of a backup-related issue. Once you identify an issue, you can act on it by seamlessly navigating to the backup item or the Azure resource, right from Backup Explorer.