Backups

Commvault backs up all of the virtual machines identified on the Content tab for a subclient.

You can perform full, incremental, or synthetic full backups of virtual machines. The first backup of a virtual machine is always a full backup, regardless of the selected backup type.

What Gets Backed Up

The following items are included in backups:

• Azure Generation 1 and Azure Generation 2 virtual machines

• Disks configured by users through the Azure portal, including disks configured on Standard and Premium storage accounts

• For Azure Resource Manager deployments, virtual machines that are configured with Azure unmanaged and managed disks. From these backups, you can restore full virtual machines and restore guest files and folders.

• Unmanaged and managed disks with Changed Block Tracking (CBT) enabled

  For more information, see Changed Block Tracking for Microsoft Azure (CBT).

• Virtual machines (VMs) with encrypted blobs. These VMs can be protected and fully recovered. However, guest file recovery of these VMs is not currently supported.

• Virtual machines that are encrypted by Azure Key Vault. Backups of these VMs can include the operating system information, the data disks information, secrets (for example, token and password information), and encryption keys (for example, algorithm information). The encryption keys can be managed by Microsoft or by customers.

  Backups of virtual machines encrypted using the Key Vault secrets encryption and keys encryption management features are supported; however, backups of virtual machines encrypted using the Key Vault certificates management feature are not supported.

What Does Not Get Backed Up

The following items are not included in backups:

• Temporary disks that are automatically configured by Azure when a virtual machine is created

• Files or network drives that are shared in Azure and mounted on a virtual machine

• Information regarding Azure Availability Zones, which are specific locations (physical) within an Azure region

• Azure Ultra SSD-managed disks

  • Due to a Microsoft limitation, incremental snapshots and CBT of encrypted disks are not supported.

  • Due to a Microsoft limitation, snapshots of Ultra SSD-managed disks are not supported. When Ultra SSD-managed disks reside on a virtual machine with other supported disks, during backups, the Ultra SSD-managed disks are skipped. The other disks on the virtual machine are backed up.

  Note: You can back up your Ultra SSD-managed disks using the Windows File System Agent. For more information, see Backups Using the Windows File System Agent.