How to Setup a Backup for SQL Server

Configuring a policy in the vault to backup your SQL database is easy with the Azure platform and can be accomplished in a few simple steps. 

Locating The Vault 

To find the correct vault first select the "Menu" icon at the top left and choose "All Services"

From there type in "resource" and select "resource group" from the menu below

 At this point you'll want to do the following: 

1. Navigate to the resource group which contains both your SQL Server and the Vault. In this case it's our "NerdioUnivRG"
2. Select your vault.  This resource would typically be "NerdioBackupVault-XXXXXXXXXX"
3. Scroll down to "Backup Policies" 
4. Finally select "Add" 

Adding & Customizing The Policy

The following is where the appropriate backup policy is selected and customized to fit the environment.

Start by selecting the policy type, which for our purpose is "SQL Server in Azure VM." Next provide a Policy Name. The guidelines can be found by hovering your cursor over the "i" 

You can begin by specifying the details of the backup policy. Select "Full Backup" and set this according to your specifications. As you can see the options are pretty extensive and allow admins to customize the backup scenario around their companies unique requirements.

*Note that the longer your retention period the more storage capacity you'll consume. Keep this in mind as you calculate the price requirements for your environment.

Next decide if you would like to enable the "Differential Backup." Keep in mind that to enable this you must have the "Full Backup" set to "Weekly" and you cannot have the differential backup scheduled for the same day as the full backup. 

The final step is to set the parameters around the "Log Backup." Once you've completed this step simply select the "Create" button under the "Backup Policy" blade and the provisioning will initiate. 

Verifying The Backup Policy 

The last step is to go back to the Vault blade and verify the policy successfully created.

 To do this simply go back to the Resource Group level, select the appropriate vault and scroll down the "Backup policies." From there you should see the policy applied and displaying the the list, next to any existing or default policies. 

Recommendations 

Make sure to periodically test/restore one of the backups to verify it's working as configured. Nerdio recommends at least quarterly testing of your backup jobs.  Within the first weeks of a new backup policy make sure to validate with a full recovery with predictable data to validate the test.

The Nerdio Admin Portal does not currently provide SQL backup features.  All maintenance and configurations will be done directly in the Azure portal. 

If you want more details on how to recover an Azure SQL database using automated database backups, simply follow the Microsoft link provided below: 
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-recovery-using-backups