With Azure Backup for backing up data to the Microsoft Azure cloud and Azure Site Recovery which is a disaster recovery solution (DRaaS), you as an IT service provider have everything you need to ensure that your customers are protected. You can use one of the two solutions or both together, whichever is needed.
Azure Backup replaces your existing onsite or offsite backup solution with a cloud-based solution. Azure Backup backs up data, machine status and workloads running on local machines and Azure Virtual Machine (VM) instances. Among the components of Azure Backup, the following are the most suitable for SMEs depending on the situation:
Microsoft Azure Recovery Service (MARS) is an agent that can be downloaded and installed on a Windows PC (Windows 7 or later) or server (Windows Server 2008 or later) to back up that individual machine. The agent will back up the data files, folders and system status and send them directly to a backup vault in Azure.
Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS) enables disk-to-disk-to-cloud backup with centralized local management and cost-effective Azure-based offsite storage. MABS is used to protect locally hosted workloads such as Windows Client, Hyper-V, VMware, SharePoint, SQL Server and Exchange. All you need is an Azure subscription to perform backups, hardware and virtual capacity to install Microsoft Azure Backup Server, and a Windows Server license.
Azure Backup extension allows full backups of Azure virtual machines (Windows/Linux).
ASR ensures business continuity, smooth operation and availability of applications in the event of a disaster. ASR can be used to protect data, applications or both; on-premise, at a hosted site or on Microsoft Azure.
ASR supports many replication scenarios: from Azure to Azure or from Hyper-V, VMWare, Window, Linux to Azure. It is possible to replicate not only virtual machines, but also physical servers.
Simplicity: ASR does not require a huge learning curve. It is easy to deploy and manage in the Azure portal.
Replication between Azure regions, from a local site to Azure or to a secondary local data center.
Multi-platform support – Azure virtual machines, Hyper-V, VMware and physical workloads.
Power: ASR offers a transparent disaster recovery process that makes it difficult to effectively detect an outage.
Flexibility: Create simple or advanced customized contingency plans and test these plans without impacting the production environment.
Migration can be used to migrate VMs to Azure.
