Simplified restore experience for Azure virtual machines

Azure Backup now offers an improved restore experience for Azure virtual machines by taking advantage of Azure Resource Manager templates and managed disks.  

The new restore experience directly creates managed disks and VM templates. This eliminates the manual process of executing scripts or PowerShell commands to convert the .vhd file and configuration file to complete the restore operation. There is zero manual intervention after the restore is triggered, making it truly a single-click operation for restoring IaaS VMs.

A managed disk Resource Manager template is automatically created in your storage account during the restore disk operation. You can deploy the template to create a VM as part of the restore operation or at a later time. You can also edit parameters in the template to customize the restored VM as required, so there's flexibility in the VM creation process.   

In addition, naming conventions of the restored disks are now more intuitive to identify the virtual machine associated with the disks during restore operations. The naming conventions are carefully chosen according to the restore path that you select—namely, “create new” and “restore disks.”

While you're restoring the VM through the “create new” flow, the target VM name is prefixed for managed disks, along with the date and time of the restore in the following format:

OS-Disk Name:     <targetVMName>-osdisk-<yyyymmdd-hhmmss>

Data-Disk Name: <targetVMName>-datadisk-<dno>-<yyyymmdd-hhmmss>

While you're restoring the VM as disks, the source VM name is prefixed for disks, along with the date and time of the restore in the following format:

OS-Disk Name:     <SourceVMName>-osdisk-<yyyymmdd-hhmmss>

Data-Disk Name: <SourceVMName>-datadisk-<dno>-<yyyymmdd-hhmmss>

For more information, see the documentation and the product page. For support, reach out to the Azure Backup forum.