Some of the major features of Azure SQL Backup for SQL Server are 15 minute RPO, one click PIT restore, long term retention, encrypted database support, auto-protect new databases, centralized management and monitor and no infrastructure deployment and management!

Learn more at the announcement page: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-backup-for-sql-server-in-azure-virtual-machines-now-generally-available/

Pantelis Apostolidis

Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.

www.cloudcorner.gr

The post Backup SQL Server & AlwaysOn AG inside Azure VMs appeared first on Apostolidis Cloud Corner.

Now we can restore an Azure VM directly with managed disks with a truly single-click operation.

In addition, we can restore only the unmanaged disks to a storage account and the process will create a template for us to create the VM  on a later time.

So, at the recovery services vault, select a VM to restore and you will see two main options.

Create New: to create a new Virtual Machine with managed disks or to restore the disks with the ARM Template

Replace existing: To restore the VM in-place, replacing the current VM.

At both options you will need to select a Staging storage account, in order to restore the VHD files. Those file will be auto-converted to managed disks by the process.

Pantelis Apostolidis

Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.

www.cloudcorner.gr

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Azure makes the VMs’ administration simpler every time. Today we will view a very nice new feature, the Azure VM Backup shortcut at the VM’s blade.

To use this feature you just have to open the VM’s blade by clicking any VM and select Backup.

The “Enable Backup” wizard will open and all you have to configure is the Backup Vault name and the Backup policy at the next easy step and press “Enable Backup” at the bottom of the “Enable backup” blade and that’s all!

After that, the next time that we will click the Backup shortcut it will show directly the VM’s Backup Settings and run an instant backup. As soon as the first backup will run, we will be able to Restore the VM. Also we will be able to see logging about the backup jobs, like the latest and oldest restore point among others.

Stay tuned for more Azure features

Pantelis Apostolidis

Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.

www.cloudcorner.gr

The post Azure VM Backup directly from VM’s blade appeared first on Apostolidis Cloud Corner.

Here comes our favorite PowerShell, combined once again with the Task Scheduler, to  give us more options.

My problem was that I wanted to backup some VMs daily and some VMs weekly. So I created two PowerShell scripts and two Task Scheduler Jobs.

The PowerShell script to backup VMs:

$policy = New-WBPolicy
Import-Csv C:vms.txt | foreach { Get-WBVirtualMachine | ? VMName -eq $_.name | Add-WBVirtualMachine -Policy $policy }
Set-WBVSSBackupOptions -POLICY $policy -VSSFULLBACKUP
$target = New-WBBackupTarget –VolumePath W:
Add-WBBackupTarget -Policy $policy -Target $target
Start-WBBackup -Policy $policy

The above script reads text file that has a list with the Virtual Machines names, the c:vms.txt, and starts the backup to the W: Drive.

If you just want to backup one VM alter the 2nd line with

Get-WBVirtualMachine | ? VMName -eq vmName | Add-WBVirtualMachine -Policy $policy

To backup Drives or/and Folders use this script:

$policy = New-WBPolicy
$directory1 = NEW-WBFileSpec -FileSpec "C:"
$directory2 = NEW-WBFileSpec -FileSpec "D:"
$directories = $directory1,$directory2
Add-WBFileSpec -POLICY $policy -fileSpec $directories
Set-WBVSSBackupOptions -POLICY $policy -VSSFULLBACKUP
$target = New-WBBackupTarget –VolumePath W:
Add-WBBackupTarget -Policy $policy -Target $target
Start-WBBackup -Policy $policy

To add the SystemState to the backup Job add this line:

Add-WBSystemState -Policy $policy

To check the current running Backup job you can run

Get-WBJob

To check the previous Backup job you can run:

Get-WBJob -Previous 1

Finally create a Task and attach the PowerShell script. Here you will find the powershell.exe “C:WindowsSystem32WindowsPowerShellv1.0″

Pantelis Apostolidis

Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.

www.cloudcorner.gr

The post Multiple Windows Server Backup Schedules using PowerShell appeared first on Apostolidis Cloud Corner.

First find the Azure backup Event Log, it under “Applications and Services Logs, CloudBackup, Operational” and select to attach a task to the log. This will trigger the task on every event created under this log. On the other hand you can attach the task to a specific event.

Create a Task and attach the below PowerShell script. Here you will find the powershell.exe “C:WindowsSystem32WindowsPowerShellv1.0”

Crate a folder c:\IT and Copy the below script on a text file and name it “eventemail.ps1”. Finally change the required fields.

$date = (Get-Date).AddDays(-2)
$event = Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{ LogName = "cloudbackup"; StartTime = $date; }
$event | ConvertTo-Html message,timecreated | Set-Content c:itbackup.html

if ($event.EntryType -eq "Error")
{
$PCName = $env:COMPUTERNAME
$EmailFrom = "FROM_EMAIL_HERE"
$EmailTo = "YOUR_EMAIL_HERE"
$EmailSubject = "Server $PCName Backup Failure report"
$SMTPServer = "SMTP_SERVER_HERE"
Write-host "Email Sent"
Send-MailMessage -From $EmailFrom -To $EmailTo -Subject $EmailSubject -body "$($event.Message) $($event.TimeCreated)" -Attachments "c:itbackup.html" -SmtpServer $SMTPServer
}
else
{
write-host "There is no error. Below the logs files."
$event
$PCName = $env:COMPUTERNAME
$EmailFrom = "FROM_EMAIL_HERE"
$EmailTo = "YOUR_EMAIL_HERE"
$EmailSubject = "Server $PCName Backup Success report"
$SMTPServer = "SMTP_SERVER_HERE"
Write-host "Sending Email"
Send-MailMessage -From $EmailFrom -To $EmailTo -Subject $EmailSubject -body "$($event.Message) $($event.TimeCreated)" -Attachments "c:itbackup.html" -SmtpServer $SMTPServer
}

The “write-host ” lines can be removed. They are useful only for troubleshooting by running the script manually on powershell.

Pantelis Apostolidis

Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.

www.cloudcorner.gr

The post Azure Backup Email Notification appeared first on Apostolidis Cloud Corner.

grep mondo /var/spool/at/* 
cp /var/spool/at/<file-from-grep> /root/mondo-cronscript

5. Run that script from your crontab (the egample is a "working" daily task, monday to friday at 00:00)

Pantelis Apostolidis

Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.

www.cloudcorner.gr

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