By using Azure Backup, you can back up your NAS device you use locally as a file server, virtual machines you use in [a] production environment, critical databases, and everything you can think of. I do not know if there are scenarios that are not suitable, it meets all my needs.
Azure Blob Storage is well suited for cases where you are working with different data formats and looking for cost-effective storage solutions based on access frequency. Another area of strength is the encryption of data at rest, and encryption can be managed on your own. However, it may not be appropriate for transferring large data very fast.
Azure Backup is fast! Coupled with the fact that Microsoft created Azure and Windows - these two operate phenomenally together!
Administering the backups inside of Azure is a breeze. The ability to mount, restore entire backups, or recover files, has been made very easy. You do not have to download any media to recover something, you do this all in the cloud and it gets mounted in Microsoft's systems. Making this process less than a quarter of the time you would have spent with your 'other' backup solutions.
Reduced cost. We were able to reduce our storage infrastructure by several hundred terabytes by consolidating redundant copies and dedupe/compression on files.
Extremely high level of redundancy. We can replicate data in a variety of ways that we would never have been capable of on our own hardware.
Backup vaults should ask if you want to send notifications when you first set it up, there have been a couple of times when I noticed a month later that, backup job failures were not configured to send email notifications.
If we are transferring huge amount of data (outbound), it can get quite expensive.
With new features being added constantly, although a good thing, at times it becomes difficult to keep up with the changes. Documentation needs to keep UpToDate and should include best practices.
Performance can be improved especially when it comes to cold storage.
Azure backup is easy to implement, accessible by using the web portal GUI, and has the ability to restore at the file level or the complete VM. We have experienced zero issues with the backup process or performing file-level restorations. We have not restored an entire VM to date.
Blob storage is fairly simple, with several different options/settings that can be configured. The file explorer has enhanced its usability. Some areas could be improved, such as providing more details or stats on how many times a file has been accessed. It is an obvious choice if you're already using Azure/Entra.
One of the differentials of the solution is the high level of guarantee and support of the Azure Backup solution. Microsoft is a reference in a technology company with a highly trained support team and helps us with any questions or technical problems with the tool. Service is fast and efficient with trained engineers.
Documentation sometimes appears to be out of date or not fully documented properly with new releases. It is like documentation comes out for a specific version and is quickly out of date. Another issue is documentation is scarce on new releases and only seems to get properly updated (and sometimes is still wrong) once enough people hit the forums to complain.
The cost, not only in the short term, but in our long-term calculations.
Even in need of improvements, the pre-sale and post-sale support is very good.
The ease, like many Microsoft products about scheduling backups, the friendly interface, the fact that there is no need for an expensive resource dedicated to this backup and some other details, made us choose Azure Backup.
Blob storage lets us control the file source/hosting and retain everything within our Microsoft ecosystem. Blob is less feature-rich than some of the other products. Still, we consider it as a value-added product included within our environment, and alternative products are not needed for our requirements. Keeping the hosting within our tenant locale is vital to us.
