Item-level recovery with Azure Backup

Q. How does item-level recovery work with Azure Backup?

A. If you backup Azure IaaS VMs using Azure Backup ordinarily the restore unit is the entire VM however there is also a file-level recovery feature. The way the file-level recovery works is through the portal you select a VM and the recovery point. A script is downloaded that is executed which mounts the disks on your local machine and the OS will automatically load volumes, from which you can then copy files, then once complete the disks are dismounted.

The connection to the disk is via iSCSI over a secure channel and will be mounted for up to 12 hours. Each disk of the VM will be mounted as a separate disk on your local machine.

When you are finished select the Dismount Disks option, from the portal, which will remove the iSCSI target and the connection on the local machine will be lost.

At current time this is in preview so email [email protected] if you are interested to try the functionality.