We are pleased to introduce backup of Microsoft SQL Server, Hyper-V VMs, SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange and Windows Clients in Microsoft Azure Backup Server, codenamed “Venus”.

Users with tier 1 workloads like Microsoft SQL Server can benefit from Microsoft Azure Backup Server by choosing disk backups for better RPOs and RTOs. Users can continue to backup to Azure for long-term retention using disk-disk-cloud backup strategy. Users can also leverage Microsoft Azure Backup Server to monitor backups of all applications in single on-premises console.

Microsoft Azure Backup agent or Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent enables backup of only Files and Folders to Azure. Users can continue to use this agent for direct backup to Azure. For protecting application workloads, users can download Microsoft Azure Backup Server and install on a Windows Server. To download, log in to Azure subscription and navigate to Azure Backup vault, or create one. Now move to quick start wizard page and download Microsoft Azure Backup Server.

Microsoft Azure Backup Server with application workload support is currently available only in English language due to time limitations. We plan on releasing support for other languages similar to Microsoft Azure Backup agent as soon as possible, with a focus on giving users a product that is suitable for deployment.

Microsoft Azure Backup Server is currently available in all geographies where Azure is available except Microsoft Azure Government datacenter and Microsoft Azure in China via 21Vianet. We are working to make it available in these geographies by end of this calendar year.

Microsoft Azure Backup Server will continue to bill customers as per their existing Azure offers (e.g. Pay-as-you-go, EA, Open) The pricing model also doesn't change and follows the same pricing model as described here

In addition to introducing workload backup capability, Microsoft Azure Backup Server comes with support for backup of large data sources, long-term retention up to 99 years, capability to recover data from Azure Backup vault using an alternate server and much more!

For details around prerequisites, configuration, FAQs, etc. refer to the Azure Backup documentation.

Related links and content:

• Learn more about Azure Backup.
• Click for a free Azure trial subscription.
• Need help? Reach out to Azure Backup forum for support.
• Tell us how we can improve Azure Backup: Contribute new ideas and vote-up existing ones!