An Azure VM's disks are already durable, but that doesn't protect you from accidental deletion, ransomware, or a bad update — that's what Azure Backup is for.

Steps

1. In the Azure portal, search for and create a Recovery Services vault (or use an existing one) — this is where your backup data is stored, separate from the VM itself.
2. Open the vault, go to Backup, choose Azure as the workload and Virtual machine as the datasource type.
3. Select the VM(s) to protect.
4. Choose or create a Backup policy — this sets how often backups run (typically daily) and how long they're retained (e.g. daily for 30 days, weekly for 12 weeks, monthly for 12 months).
5. Click Enable backup. The first backup runs on the schedule you set, or you can trigger one immediately with Backup now.

Common Questions

Does backup slow down or interrupt the VM?

Azure Backup uses snapshot technology that has minimal performance impact and doesn't require downtime — the VM keeps running normally during a backup.

How long should we retain backups?

It depends on your recovery needs and any compliance requirements, but a common baseline is daily backups kept for 30 days, weekly backups for a few months, and monthly backups for a year — adjust based on how far back you'd realistically need to recover from.

Is Azure Backup the same as Azure Site Recovery?

No — Backup protects data so you can restore it after loss or corruption. Site Recovery replicates entire systems so you can fail over and keep running during an outage. See our separate guide on Site Recovery for disaster recovery specifically.