File recovery from VM backup(Recovery Service vault)

Backup service can be enabled on VM through recovery service vault. This will primarily facilitate restoration of a VM from Backup when disaster happens.  

Full VM restoration is  rare requirement ,how about recovering  files/folders incase the same is corrupted or accidentally deleted.  

File recovery capability of Recovery service vault can take care of this requirement.

1. Go to respective Vault

2. Select "Backup Items" from left panel 

3. Select the desire item from right side window.

4. From top menu click on "File Recovery" and follow the steps below

5. Click on the dropdown "Step 1: Select recovery point" and search for desire target date

6.  Save "Download Executable" locally and  run it, This will create a MAP drive

7.  Open windows explorer and browse through the map drive and copy the desire       
     files/folder to target VM

Once done , don't forgot to click "Unmount Disk"

Remove a specific recovery point from Recovery service vault

No you can't do that.
This is not allowed either from Azure portal or from PowerShell and CLI.
I had a business requirement to move 8 years VM backup from Recovery Vault to Blob Storage.

It was completely a manual activity as Azure doesn't offer data migration from vault to storage.  We decided to remove restore point from vault as soon as we move the data to storage to reduce vault cost. 

This approach didn't stand since recovery service vault doesn't support deletion of restoration point. As an alternative we decided to modify BackUpPolicy and reduce retention period progressively in sync with data migration progress. Team who worked they started moving vault data from most old restoration pint to most recent point.

Azure VM - static private IP address

When  we create a Azure VM, it automatically assign a private IP address from the range define in subnet where VM is deployed.

This private IP will remain unchanged until VM is deallocated or decommissioned.

If Network configuration demands a fixed private IP assign to the VM which should work even after VM resumes from deallocation, then static private IP address would be the solution.

Static private IP address allows a specific hand picked IP address assign to the VM.

Static IP address is specially needed  when private DNS requires a A record entry.

Assign static IP address is easy:-

1. Select the VM from Azure portal

2. Go to "Networking" page and select "Network Interface"

3. Click on existing IP address from list

4. Now change the assignment to "Static" from "Dynamic"

5. In the text below specify the desire IP address and click on save.

Vault cannot be deleted as there are existing resources within the vault

I spent almost half of a day to figure out this issue.  Exception was self explanatory but finding the solution was difficult.

You may experience this error when try to remove a Recovery service vault, Root cause is explained below.

This error signifies that Recovery vault has dependency on a storage account. To resolve this issue, you have to unregister storage account from vault.

Steps are very easy :-

1. Go to target recovery service vault 

2. Select "Backup Infrastructure" from left side panel

3. Select "Storage Accounts" from left side panel

4. From the right side panel , select the storage name and then click on "Unregister"

Now try to delete the vault again and see the magic.

Advantage of MFT over normal FTP

MFT  stand for Managed File Transfer and FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. 

Both are use for transferring file from client computer to server computer.
However considering cybersecurity threats in mind  it is always advisable to use MFT.

Traditional FTP service transfer file over unsecure channel  whereas MFT support advanced security protocol and transfer file over a secure channel. It supports variety of protocols like.

1. FTPS
2. SFTP
3. AS2

Update VM size for old generation VM

Your workload is hosted on old generation or promo SKU, for such situation migrating to a new generation SKU is always difficult. We can't find the desire SKU from VM upgradation bled.

Following are the steps to accomplish this.

1. Deallocate the VM (Not stop , deallocate is different than stop)

2. Go to VM upgradation bled and select desire VM size and proceed.

Note: Desire VM size will not available until VM is deallocated.

Cons: Deallocation of VM will release dynamic IP(public and private), make sure your infrastructure doesn't depend on existing dynamic IP otherwise assign static IP to VM before resizing.

Take a full backup of VM for disaster , there might be a chance of unsuccessful upgradation.

Azure Constrained vCPU

Azure VM vCPU and RAM always proportionally increase from one SKU to immediate next SKU.

This method doesn't stand for vCPU based software license like database software e.g. SQL Server and Oracle.

Database software often demands more memory to add whereas vCPU will remain unchanged.

Azure constrained vCPU will address this issue. This will allow to add/remove more RAM on the same workload  whereas vCPU and other parameter will be same.