How to Create a Recovery Services vault in Azure

In this Azure tutorial, we will discuss How to Create a Recovery Services vault in Azure. Apart from this, we will also discuss the below topics

• What Is Azure Recovery Services Vault
• Set storage redundancy for the services vault
• How to set cross-region to restore for the services vault
• Create a Recovery Services vault using PowerShell

Create a Recovery Services vault

A recovery service vault is something that stores backups and recovery data.

• Azure Recovery Services Vault VS Backup Vault

The data is nothing but copies of data, or configuration information of the virtual machines (VM).

This helps us organize the backup data.

You can create up to 500 recovery service vaults per subscription and per region.

Before discussing How to Create a Recovery Services vault, we should know What is Recovery Services vault.

What Is Azure Recovery Services Vault

Azure Recovery Services Vault is a storage object that can hold your backup data in an organized way. The data that can be stored here is Virtual machine configuration information, different servers, or backup of your workstations, backup of your Azure SQL databases, etc.

How to Create a Recovery Services Vault in Azure

Follow the below steps to create a Recovery Services vault in the Azure portal.

Step- 1: Log in to https://portal.azure.com/

Step 2: On the left side menu, click on “All services”.

Step 3: Now search for “Recovery Services” Now you will see “Recovery Services vaults”. Click on that.

Step 4: It will show the lists of Recovery Services vaults. Click on the Add button.

Step 5: On the Create Recovery Services vault window, Select the Subscription, and Resource group, Give a Vault name, select a region, and then click on the Review + Create button.

Step 6: Now click on the Create button.

Step- 7: Now it will show that the deployment is completed.

Step 8: Now to confirm if it is successfully created, you can see it here

You can see above the new Services vaults got created and named “MyNewVault”.

Set storage redundancy for the services vault

You can set the storage replication type between the two

• Geo-redundant
• Locally-redundant

The default is Geo-redundant. If you want you can change it to Locally-redundant.

You can follow the below steps to do so

Step-1: On the Recovery Services vaults window, click on the new vault you have created. In my case it is MyNewVault.

Step- 2: Click on properties under the Settings section and then click on Update under Backup Configuration.

Step 3: On the Backup Configuration window, select the Storage replication type as “Locally-redundant” and then click on the Save button.

Note: It is suggested to use the Geo-redundant(Default) as the Storage replication type.

In this way, you can set the storage redundancy for the services vaults.

How to set cross-region restore for the services vault

Cross-Region Restore (CRR) helps you to restore Azure VMs in a secondary region if there’s a disaster in the primary region.

If you are creating a vault with GRS redundancy include the option to configure the Cross-Region Restore feature and if it is Locally-redundant then you will not get the option for Cross-Region Restore (CRR).

You can follow the below steps to set cross-region to restore the services vault.

Step-1: On the Recovery Services vaults window, click on the new vault you have created. In my case it is MyNewVault.

Step- 2: Click on properties under the Settings section and then click on Update under Backup Configuration.

Step 3: On the Backup Configuration window, select the Storage replication type as “Geo-redundant” and then only you can see the Cross-Region Restore option. Select the Enable button there.

Finally, Click on the Save button.

This is how you can set cross-region to restore for the services vault.

Create a Recovery Services vault using PowerShell

We already discussed how can we create a recovery services vault using the Azure portal. Now let’s discuss how we can create the same using PowerShell.

Step-1:

You need to have a resource group where you can place the Recovery Services vault. If you have already an existing one you can use it. If you do not have any resource group then you can create one by using the below line of code.

New-AzResourceGroup -Name "mynewresgroup123" -Location "West US"

Step- 2:

Use the below line of code to create the Services vault and specify the name for the vault, specify the resource group, and specify the location. One important point here is to make sure the location for the resource group and the location for creating the vault should be the same.

New-AzRecoveryServicesVault -Name "MyNewVault123" -ResourceGroupName "mynewresgroup123" -Location "West US"

Step- 3:

Use the below line of code to specify the type of storage redundancy to use. Here, in my case, I am trying to use the storage type as GeoRedundant.

$myVault = Get-AzRecoveryServicesVault -Name "MyNewVault123"
Set-AzRecoveryServicesBackupProperty  -Vault $myVault -BackupStorageRedundancy GeoRedundant

This is how you can create a Recovery Services vault using PowerShell.

Managing your Recovery Services vaults in the Azure portal

As we have already seen it is very easy to create the Recovery Services vaults and manage the same in the Azure portal. Just a couple of steps need to be followed to create it.

If you wish to see the recovery points for your virtual machine you just need to select your VM and then select the Backup option from the left side menu.

Step-1: Select your virtual machine and click on the Backup option from the left side menu.

Step- 2: See below you can able to see the Recovery points and all the other details here.

If your virtual machine doesn’t have a backup configured, then it will show you to configure a backup.

If it is already configured for your virtual machine then it will show the backup details with the status.

Here in my case, vault938 is the Recovery Services vault created for my virtual machine(VM).

Azure recovery services vault pricing

When you are thinking of Azure recovery services vault pricing, you should consider Azure Backup pricing as well as Azure Site Recovery pricing.

Azure Site Recovery pricing

Then, You can check out the Pricing for Azure backup.

FAQs

Let’s discuss some FAQs on Azure recovery services vault limits.

What is the maximum number of Recovery Services Vaults that can be created for subscription one region?

You can create 500 Recovery Services vaults for a single subscription.

How many items/data sources can be protected in a vault?

You can able to create up to 2000 items/data sources across all workloads in a vault.

What is the maximum number of machines/servers that can be registered against each vault?

A maximum of up to 1000 Azure Virtual machines/vault can be registered, 50 MARS agents/vault can be registered and A maximum of up to 50 MABS servers can be registered / vault.

What is the maximum amount of data that can be backed up using a Recovery Services vault?

There is no limit.

In Azure backup, which type of vault is recommended for better protection?

The answer is “Recovery Services Vault”

Azure recovery services vault vs storage account: State the differences

Let’s discuss here, a few key differences between the Azure recovery services vault and storage account.

You may like the following Azure tutorials:

• Connect to Azure in PowerShell (And Azure AD)

Conclusion

In this Azure tutorial, We discussed How to Create a Recovery Services vault in Azure. Along with that, we have also discussed the below topics

• How to Create a Recovery Services Vault in Azure
• What Is Azure Recovery Services Vault
• Create a Recovery Services vault
• Set storage redundancy for the services vault
• How to set cross-region restore for the services vault
• Create a Recovery Services vault using PowerShell
• How to move Recovery Services vault to different resource group
• How to move Recovery Services vault to a different Subscription

Hope you have enjoyed this article !!!

Bijay Kumar

I am Bijay, a Microsoft MVP (10 times) having more than 17 years of experience in the software industry. During my IT career, I got a chance to share my expertise in SharePoint and Microsoft Azure, like Azure VM, Azure Active Directory, Azure PowerShell, etc. I hope you will learn from these Azure tutorials. Read more