VBAZ: Create Azure Repository on Web console

Prerequisites

• Storage account and container created in Azure (click here to see how)

Open the Azure appliance web console

In the VBR management console, go to Backup Infrastructure > Managed servers > Microsoft Azure

Click on the appliance > Open Console

This will open your default browser.

You will get a certificate warning. This is normal, because during the deployment process a default certificate is assigned to the appliance which does not correspond to the provisioned host name.

Just click Advanced and then on the "Proceed to ..." link.

 

You don't need to log in, because previously, during the appliance creation, the admin password of the appliance was also specified and saved by VBR. This is now used for the login.

Add the repository

Click Configuration in the top right corner of the screen.

Then choose Repositories > +Add.

A wizard will open.

On the Name tab, specify the name of the repo.

On the container tab:

Choose the storage account previously created in Azure.

Choose the container previously created in Azure.

Create a new folder where the repository will be stored.

And choose Auto-create all tiers.

Tiers: Veeam uses different Azure access tiers to store backups based on how frequently the given backup is created. (In terms of Azure, this means how often data is accessed in the given tier.) 

Veeam recommendation:

• Hot tier -> Daily/Weekly schedule (data blocks updated daily/weekly; retention < 30 days)
• Cool tier -> Weekly/Monthly schedule (data blocks updated weekly/monthly; retention = couple of weeks/months)
• Archive tier -> Monthly/Yearly schedule (data blocks updated monthly/yearly; retention = several months)

Immutability: If during the storage account and container creation, you chose to enable Versioning and Immutability respectively, then your repository will  be automatically configured as an immutable repository. This setting cannot be changed through Veeam.

If you chose to have immutability, you will get a warning about additional costs.

On the Encryption tab:

Enable encryption. 

If you have an Azure key vault configured, you can use that, if not, just simply specify a password.

On the Options tab, limit the concurrent backup tasks, otherwise the Azure throttling would kick in. This can be fine-tuned later on.

Finish the wizard.

You will see 3 repositories being created. 

These are the auto-created repository tiers - the tier name is added to the repository name: hot, cool and archive.