How Do I Restore Images or Files via the Azure Portal


Applies to: Nerdio for Azure (NFA) Professional, Enterprise and Core Accounts Only.

Refer this KB article to determine if you are a NFA user.


This article applies to anyone who would like to perform restores outside of the scope of what Nerdio is able to accomplish with its backup defaults.  For more information on using the back up features in Nerdio, please review this article. NFA Backup Overview

Azure Backup has several components that make up a successful backup solution. This article will focus on the restore aspects for VMs at the image level and file level.  The following is an outline for what will be covered in this article.
  • Making the Azure portal a little more manageable to work with backup
  • Steps to perform a image restore of a VM as another separate instance
  • Steps to perform a file level restore with mountable disk images
For more information and alternate explanations, please see this Microsoft article:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-arm-restore-vms

Managing in the Azure portal
Log into the Azure portal and click on All Services in the left blade. In the search box type Vault and then click on the star to make it a favorite. We like to do this to minimize clicks to get to your backup vault and to bring it front and center for when you need to get to that function quickly.  Use the ellipsis on the right of the menu item to drag it towards the top.  Prioritizing your menu items is an efficient way to organize your portal activity and levels of importance for the service.
 
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There are often times many ways to get to the same place in the Azure portal. It is worth taking the time to organize your menu blade to avoid unnecessary clicks.  If you have any portal tips and tricks of your own please email them to partners@getnerdio.com.  We will find ways to socialize those ideas to help others with tasks that need to be completed via the Azure portal.

Image level restore as new virtual machine

The first restore example will be an image level restore as a new virtual machine instance.  The common use case is where the clarity of what needs to be restored is missing and a "stare and compare" of two VMs is necessary to narrow down the issue and find the specifics for the next actions of a restore.
From the menu item Recovery Services Vault, choose the NerdioBackupVault-XXXXXXXXXX.  In the blade under Protected Items click on Backup Items (highlighted blue in the image below).  To the right you will see Azure Virtual Machine and the item count for the number of VMs being backed up.  Click on the Azure Machine Row to display the VMs that currently have a backup set.
 
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With the detailed list of VMs that are now visible, click on the VM that needs to be restored as a new virtual machine instance.
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When that VM has been selected, a new tile will appear with the information about that VM backup and its current sets that exist within the retention window. Find the appropriate restore point and use the ellipsis on the right drop down the menu choices.  In this example choose Restore VM.
Nerdio Note:

The default retention in Nerdio is 30 days.  This can be extended on a per VM basis if a longer retention time is needed. 

 

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This particular set of instructions is focused on creating a new instance of an image restore.  The Create new should be highlighted and the fields should be filled out appropriately.  The VM name should be something different than the already existing virtual machine.  The storage account be an existing or a new storage account.  All other fields should default to the settings that would be typical for a Nerdio created resource group.

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There are two options in the Restore Type, Create Virtual Machine is the default and is what is needed for our current example.

 

 

Hit save and commit the restore.  With a reasonable period of time the new running instance will be available for login and use.   If you want to see or manage the progress, go to you vault again and choose Backup jobs in the monitoring section.  Here you will see any active backup work occurring including start times.

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Selecting the job will provide additional detail including a progress bar and percentage.

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 File level restore as mountable disk

A file level restore involves the use of an existing VM where you are able to mount the disk resources to an existing and running virtual machine.  A great use case would be performing these steps on FS01 to mount the additional disk and copy deleted files back into the production server data disk.

Similar to a prior step in an image restore, the alternative selection would have been to choose File Recovery.

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Once File Recovery is selected a new blade will appear with a three step process. The first two steps are to get the to the files, the remaining step is to unmount the image and put the virtual machine back into normal operating mode.

Step 1 would be to choose a date within the retention period.  Step 2 is to download and secure the executable to be run as an administrator on a running virtual machine in the same resource group.  This could also be the same server where the files originally existed and were being backed up.  Finally, step 3 is to clean up the process by removing (unmounting) the recovery disk that was mounted to the server.

 

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