How to restore VMs directly to Microsoft Azure

Having the option to restore VM directly to Microsoft Azure in case of emergency can greatly improve your disaster recovery strategy. Cove Data Protection now offers even more flexibility while, at the same time, reducing operational costs for disaster recovery service providers (DRaaS). With Cove’s Standby Image recovery in Azure, it’s possible to deliver enhanced disaster recovery while experiencing up to 60% cost savings over traditional appliances...

“Azure and Cove offer a smarter way to solve the issue of failing over to the cloud,” commented Chris Groot, general manager of Cove Data Protection. “It’s free to send data into an Azure tenant, and you only pay for Azure compute when you boot up the virtual machine (VM). Cove allows you to create a bootable image after every backup and store it there until it’s needed. In the case of an outage, Azure gives you full control over compute resources, and the cost of running in Azure during an outage is more affordable than buying and maintaining an expensive backup and disaster recovery (BDR) appliance you may never use. You can also continue to run your VM in Azure, if you choose, as part of a larger cloud-first IT strategy.”. You can read the whole article HERE.

Cove Data Protection™ simplifies backup and disaster recovery with its cloud-first approach. Protect servers, workstations, and even Microsoft 365 data, all managed from a central web dashboard. You have a choice to restore individual files or entire VM directly to Microsoft Azure on-demand, or utilize continuous, automated backups with near-instant boot times.

Requirements for Microsoft Azure Recovery

To recover VM directly to Microsoft Azure, the following backups must exist: 

1. Full System State of the device

2. Entire system disk (the files and folders data source, i.e., C: drive)

3. Before the restore operation, you need to create the VM in Azure setup with the Recovery location

4. ‘Virtual disaster recovery’ feature has to be enabled on a product level

NOTE: 32-bit architecture is not supported and only Windows OS is supported

Recovery Methods

Cove Data Protection™ offers 2 recovery methods to Azure:

1. Restore to Azure provides on-demand restores, enables access to critical files or applications instantly in Azure whenever needed.

2. Standby Image (SBI) to Azure provides continuous backups, while automated recoveries ensure near-instant boot of your Azure VMs in case of outages

On-Demand Restore

It simplifies data recovery as you can recover critical files and applications from Azure backups in seconds. Utilize the Configure Restore to Azure feature for granular, point-in-time data recovery of Azure VMs.  With this method you can recover any file or entire VMs from Azure backups at any point in time, all tracked clearly from the dashboard. Supported data sources include Files & Folders, System State, MS SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint, you just have to make sure thay are included in the backup in the first place.

Continuous Restore - Standby Image (SBI)

Standby Image (SBI) to Azure gives you an option to provide disaster recovery without any downtime. SBI keeps your data constantly synchronized to a ready-to-boot Azure VM, ensuring instant access even if your original system fails. Plus it enables you to assign devices to multiple recovery plans (Azure, Hyper-V, ESXi) for added flexibility. Remember to choose the option that best suits your needs and purpose. Choose between quick, one-time restores or continuous backups with fast Azure VM boots based on your needs.