Infrastructure modernization, from on-premises to Microsoft Azure with backup solution using Azure Files, Azure Backup and Recovery Services Vault.

An overview of the tools and services used in this project.

In this project based on a real-world scenario, I acted as a Cloud Specialist to modernize and migrate an on-premises infrastructure environment to Microsoft Azure. I deployed a set of Virtual Machines, the infrastructure, a shared file system and replaced backups from tape to cloud backups with 99.9% (3-nines) availability.

I used a Resource Group to organize resources, a VNet with a subnet where we would have the provisioning of 2 Application VMs and Azure Files as a shared file system solution between our Application VMs.

All the power and reliability of Azure Backup with Azure Recovery Services have been used to configure the backup of files in the shared file system. Once again, Azure Backup has been used to move the files to the Recovery Services Vault.

An overview of the project’s structure and goal.

The virtual machines, file share and recover services vault would all serve as the cloud equivalent to the servers, shared file system and backup/restore tapes respectively. Once I created the VMs, I created and mounted the file share to both of them which would allow both VMs to access a shared space. The file share was like a Google Drive or Dropbox for VMs; both VMs could read files from it and write files to it.

Overview of an Azure file share.

Then it was time to set up the recovery services vault to enable the backup and recovery mechanisms for the file share. Once active, the vault would backup the files inside them and allow the recovery of files from these backups through restore points.

Backing up the files stored in the file share.

After I made sure the files were backed up, I simulated an unintentional removal of some of the files. 2 of 5 of the files on the file share were removed and I would need to use the recovery services vault to restore them. The restore points represent a single backup and mark the date and time of the backup to give an idea of the state of the files in the backup.

Using a restore point in the recovery services vault to get files back.

The removal and recovery of files in the file share.

Accidents and mistakes are always a possibility and files can be unintentionally removed as a result. Having a file backup and recovery system is always useful when managing large projects.