Data Platform Tips 16 - Backing up an Azure SQL Database

Database backups are really important for every organisation for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery scenarios.

Azure SQL Databases are backup automatically and they are kept between 7 and 35 days. Point-in-time restore is a self-service capability allowing organisations to restore a database from the backups (Full, Differential and Transaction Log) that are created automatically. These automatic backups are part of Azure SQL Database service. The storage for the automatic backups cannot be changed or copied to a different storage account as they are managed by Azure.

If the backups needs to be retained for a longer duration then long term retention for the backups needs to be configured.

The first full backup is immediately created after the database is created. After the full backup, all further backups are scheduled automatically.

Full Database Backups	Differential Backups	Transactional Log Backups
Every Week	Every 12 hours	Every 5 to 10 minutes

a) Log on to the Azure Portal. steps a) and b) for creation of resource group and Azure SQL Database.

b)Navigate to the "sampledb" under the "AAD-SQL" resource group and click on "Manage Backups" to check the Backup Policies.

c) The default Backup Retention can be changed to manage backups for longer terms using "Configure Retention" policy.

d) Here is the modified Retention policy.

e) You can see the available backups under the "Available backups" section.