Configuring Backups for Azure Stack Hub

You can use the configuration wizard to configure backups for Azure Stack Hub VMs. The configuration wizard guides you through the configuration process, which includes creating any new entities that are needed, such as a backup plan, a hypervisor, and a VM group.

Verify That Your Environment Meets the Requirements

Review the system requirements.

Start the Configuration Wizard

From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

The Overview page appears.
In the upper-right area of the page, click Add hypervisor.

The Configure Hypervisor page appears.
Click Microsoft Azure Stack Hub.
Click Next.

The Add Hypervisor page of the configuration wizard appears.

Add Hypervisor

For Hypervisor name, enter a descriptive name for the hypervisor.
For Authentication Type, select one of the following:
- Active Directory Federation Services
- Azure Active Directory
For Resource Manager URL, enter the website address to use to communicate with your Azure Stack environment.
For Subscription ID, enter the subscription ID for your Azure account.
For Tenant ID, enter the tenant ID for the Azure account.
For Application ID, enter the application ID for the tenant.
For Application password, enter the password for the application.
If you selected Active Directory Federation Services as the authentication type, for Thumbprint, enter the thumbprint.
For Access nodes, select one or more access nodes for the hypervisor.

The access node must be present on Azure Stack Hub. You can designate one access node to back up instances from multiple projects (to which access rights are provided in your Azure Stack Hub service account). For faster backups and restores, designate at least one access node for every Azure Stack Hub region.
Steps to add a new access node
1. Click the add button .
  
  The Add a new Access node dialog box appears.
2. Click the package to download for the platform: Windows (64-bit).
3. After selecting the package, copy the provided Auth code to your clipboard, as it will be required during the package installation on the access node.
4. Once the access node is configured with the CommServe, refresh the page and select the access node from the dropdown menu.
Click Next.

The Create backup plan page of the configuration wizard appears.

Plan

A backup plan specifies the storage to back up the data to and other settings such as recovery point objective (RPO) settings.

Select an existing backup plan or create a new backup plan.
Steps to create a backup plan
1. Click the add button .
  
  The Add plan dialog box appears.
2. In the Plan name box, enter a descriptive name for the backup plan.
3. For Storage, select the storage pool where you want to store backups.
  - Click the add button and select Air Gap Protect, Disk, or Cloud as the storage option.
4. For the backup plan settings, select pre-defined settings or create custom settings:
  - To select pre-defined settings, under Retention rules, select one of the following:
    - Select Standard retention to retain the incremental backups for 1 month.
    - Select Extended retention for optimized storage where the incremental backups of primary and secondary copies are retained for 1 month, and extended retention for monthly and yearly full backups.
      
      Note
      
      The Extended retention option is available only when the secondary copy backup is selected.
  - To create custom settings, select Custom plan, and then specify the following:
    - For Retention, specify the amount of time to retain the backup jobs.
    - For Retention monthly full (Secondary copy), specify the amount of time to retain the monthly full backup on secondary copy.
    - For Retention yearly full (Secondary copy), specify the amount of time to retain the yearly full backup on secondary copy.
    - For Backups run every, specify how often to run backups.
5. Click Done.
Click Next.

The Add VM Group page of the configuration wizard appears.

Add VM Group

A VM group is a set of VMs that you want to back up with the same settings. By default, the VM group includes all unprotected VMs. You can modify the VM group content by using rules that auto-discover content and by selecting VMs, hosts, clusters, and datacenters.

In Name, enter a descriptive name for the VM group.
To create rules that auto-discover and select VMs to back up, do the following:
1. Click Add, and then select Rules.
  
  The Add rule dialog box appears.
2. From the list, select the type of rule to create, and then specify the rule:
  - Browse: Select specific VMs. (Selecting this option changes the Add rule dialog box to the Add content dialog box.)
  - Locations: Select VMs based on the location they are in.
  - Power state: Select VMs based on whether they are powered on or off.
  - Resource group: Select VMs based on the resource group they are in.
  - Storage account: Select VMs based on the storage account they are in.
  - Tag name: Select instances based on the names of tags that are assigned to them. Enter the tag name in the region\tag_name format. For example, to select instances in the eastern US region that are for a department, enter Tag name | Equals | us-east-1\department.
  - Tag value: Select instances based on the values of tags that are assigned to them. Enter the tag value in the region\tag_name\tag_value format. For example, to select instances in the eastern US region for the human resources department, enter Tag value | Equals | us-east-1\department\HR.
  - Virtual machine name or pattern: Select VMs based on their names. For example, to select VMs that have a name that includes "east", enter Virtual machine name or pattern | Contains | east.
3. Click Save.
To select VMs in other ways, do the following:
1. Click Add, and then select Content.
  
  The Add content dialog box appears.
2. From the Browse and select VMs list, select one of the following:
  - Regions: Select an Azure region to include all VMs in the region.
  - Resource group: Select a resource group for Azure Resource Manager.
  - Storage accounts: Select a storage account to include all VMs that are in the storage account.
  - VMs: Select specific VMs.
3. Click Save.
To use IntelliSnap to back up the VM group, move the IntelliSnap toggle key to the right.

When you enable IntelliSnap for a VM group, the associated backup plan is automatically updated to have the Snap enabled option selected.
To see the VMs that are selected for the VM group, click the Preview button.
Click Submit.

The Summary page of the configuration wizard appears.

Summary

Review the summary.
Click Finish.