Hotfix Available to Fix Windows Azure Online Backup So it Can, Uh, Backup

When consideration for possible names goes into a product, you kind of expect the final result to have something to do with what the product actually does – or can do. So, this latest hotfix for Windows Azure Online Backup is half comical, and half forehead-smacking.

Customers who use Windows Azure Online Backup have been having problems with, no doubt, backing up, and a new hotfix from Microsoft is intended to fix it.

Delivered in a single Upgrade.exe installation file, the hotfix seeks to fix an issue where the backup process is unsuccessful due to how the Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) is unreachable because of communication errors between the Windows Azure Online Backup Agent and the a new certification authority chain for the server certificate. So, it's not really that it's never worked, just that something has changed that requires an update to the product.

The hotfix is available here: FIX: Backups are unsuccessful when you use Windows Azure Online Backup

Windows Azure Online Backup is a service that connects between Microsoft's Public-facing Azure service and the local datacenter running Windows Server 2012 R2. It allows manual and scheduled backups of on-premises data to be stored in the Cloud for continuity and disaster recovery purposes. Backups are encrypted on-premises and then sent securely to Microsoft Azure where they are also stored encrypted.