Windows Azure Backup Support Options

Windows Azure Backup has been tested on the following server platforms:

1. Windows Server 2012 Datacenter
   
   
2. Windows Server 2012 Foundation
   
   
3. Windows Server 2012 Standard
   
   

   Caution
   The Server Core installation of the Windows Server°2012 operating system was tested as well as the Server with a GUI installation of the Windows Server°2012 operating system.

4. Hyper-V Server 2012
   
   
5. Windows Server 2012 Essentials
   
   
6. Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard SP1
   
   
7. Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise SP1
   
   
8. Windows Server 2008 R2 DatacenterSP1
   
   
9. Windows Server 2008 R2 FoundationSP1
   
   
10. Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials SP1
    
    

To include the prerequisite software in the Windows Azure Backup Agent installation you must download and install the Microsoft Online Services Sign In Assistant before installing the Windows Azure Backup Agent. The Microsoft Online Services Sign In Assistant can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center. Be sure to note the download location. You can then use the following command to perform this installation, specifying the appropriate download location:

msiexec /qn  downloadlocation

After the Microsoft Online Services Sign In Assistant is installed you can run the silent installation for Windows Azure Backup using the following command:

obsinstaller.exe /q

For more information about installing Windows Azure Backup, see Install the Windows Azure Backup Agent

Any currently configured backups will be stopped. You will need to reregister the server with the backup vault and it will be considered a new server by Recovery Services, so the first backup operation that occurs after registration will be a full backup of all of the data included in the backup, instead of just the changes since the last backup occurred. However, if you need to perform a recovery operation you can recover the data that has been backed up using Recover from another server recovery option. For more information, see Rename a server.

The following table identifies the drives and whether they can be used with the online backup service.

Yes. In the current implementation the agent service converts the deduplicated data to normal data when it prepares the backup operation. It then optimizes the data for backup, encrypts the data, and then sends the encrypted data to the online backup service.

No. The backup vault stores the backed up data that had been transferred up to the point of the cancellation. Windows Azure Backup uses a checkpoint mechanism so that the backup data gets check-pointed occasionally during the backup and the next backup process can validate the integrity of the files. The next backup triggered would be incremental over the data that had been backed up previous. This provides better utilization of bandwidth, so that you do not need to transfer the same data repeatedly.

The size of the cache folder is determined by the amount of data that you are backing up. In general you should expect that 10-15% of the space required for data storage should be allocated for the cache folder.

This can occur when the backup schedule settings stored on the local server are not the same as the settings stored in the backup vault. The following are some possible reasons for this occurrence:

• The local server has been recovered to a known good state.
  
  
• Windows Azure Recovery Services have recovered the settings to a known good state.
  
  

When either the server or the settings have been recovered, the backup schedules can lose synchronization. If this has happened, you should reconfigure the backup policy and then Run Back Up Now to resynchronize the local server with Windows Azure.

This error is sometimes caused when the Windows Azure service have been recovered from a serious error. As a result of this recovery, your server settings might have been modified. If you are seeing this error you should re-register your server with the backup vault. Once you have registered your server, all operations will resume according to your previously configured schedule.

Support for the current release of Windows Azure Backup requires that you install the Update Roll up 2 for System Center Data Protection Manager SP1 before installing the Windows Azure Backup Agent. For full details on this update, see Update Roll up 2 for System Center Data Protection Manager SP1.

All the data that is backed up is compressed and encrypted before being transferred. If you are backing up a large amount of data you can expect about 25% less data to be transferred because of the compression, though this might vary depending on the type of data being backed up. If you are backing up a smaller amount of data, you might see more data being transferred than the amount of data. This is because a fixed data of around 35 MB is transferred during the first backup irrespective of the amount of data being backed up. Subsequent backups only transfer the changed/added data, so the difference in data size for those transfers is purely due to the effect of encryption and compression.