Azure Site Recovery (ASR) exists for a different job than backup: instead of restoring data after it's lost, it keeps a continuously-replicated copy of your systems ready to take over immediately if your primary site goes down.

Steps to Set Up Replication

1. In the Azure portal, open (or create) a Recovery Services vault in the region you want to fail over to.
2. Go to Site Recovery and click Enable replication.
3. Choose your source — an existing Azure VM in another region, an on-premises Hyper-V/VMware server, or a physical server, depending on what you're protecting.
4. Select the target region, resource group, virtual network, and storage settings for the replicated copy.
5. Enable replication and monitor initial sync progress — the first full replication can take time depending on data size; after that, only changes are replicated continuously.

Testing a Failover

Regularly run a Test Failover — this spins up an isolated copy of the replicated system in Azure without affecting production or actual replication, letting you confirm it actually works before you need it for real.

Common Questions

How is this different from Azure Backup?

Backup protects point-in-time copies of data for restore after loss. Site Recovery keeps a near-real-time replica ready so you can fail over and keep operating during an outage, then fail back once your primary site is restored. Many organizations use both together.

How current is the replicated copy?

Typically within minutes, depending on your configuration and how much data is changing — Site Recovery replicates changes continuously rather than on a daily schedule like a typical backup job.