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This section examines some of the different backup scenarios that can be implemented using Azure Backup.


Tape replacement
Many organizations store their backup data on-premises on disk media and store their long-term retention data on tapes. They invest in significant tape infrastructure to meet their compliance requirement. Besides the cost of tape infrastructure, tapes require manual intervention to replace the older ones. Tapes must be labelled correctly and risk potential errors and data loss if they are mishandled. To store tape data offsite, organizations must arrange tape pick-up on a daily or weekly basis. In addition, to recover offsite data, organizations must request all the relevant tapes and restore the data.

Cloud-based backup inherently addresses all of the preceding issues. As long as organizations have network connectivity to the cloud provider, backup to the cloud saves money. Organizations can leverage the pay-as-you-go model with the cloud rather than investing in upfront costs for tape storage.

Beyond the cost savings, there are other inherent advantages to storing backup data in the cloud:
 Data can be retrieved even if there is a disaster on-premises.
 Restore times are cut down and there is no need to wait for the tape delivery from offsite.
 There is no need to restore all data to retrieve a single item.

Azure Backup is clearly a good solution to address the tape replacement scenario because it provides a competitive tape replacement strategy for businesses.


Branch office backup
Branch offices typically have fewer machines and smaller infrastructure than a large datacenter. However, the data generated in branch offices is often critical for the business. Some organizations back up this data locally in the branch office, which means they need to purchase additional storage for each branch in addition to managing the complexity of the storage and backup infrastructure in each branch.

More than a handful of branch offices increases the management complexity multi-fold. In this case, some organizations back up their branch office data to the main office. But this again means that the main office must purchase the storage necessary to support all the workloads that are backed up from each of the branches.

With cloud-based backup, however, organizations can eliminate their local storage and back up data directly to the cloud. Azure Backup enables businesses to back up their Windows-based servers directly to the cloud, thereby eliminating local storage at each of the branch offices.


Windows client backup
With Azure Backup, organizations can back up files and folders on their Windows-based desktops and laptop computers directly to the cloud with an entirely self-service model where the IT administrator needs to take minimal or no action on behalf of the user. Since the data is encrypted when it leaves the computer, data is always secure. Individuals in a small organization can either share the same vault or each user can have a dedicated vault or subscription, depending on the sharing needs among the individuals in the organization.


Protection of Microsoft Azure assets
With an ever-increasing number of enterprises and small businesses moving their workloads to the cloud, organizations need a simple mechanism to ensure that data created in the cloud is also backed up, just as is done on-premises. Microsoft Azure inherently provides high availability and redundancy of storage with the guarantee that if there is a storage or computer outage, the application can continue to run using redundant storage or computers. With the support for backup of Azure IaaS virtual machines (VMs), however, (which is currently in preview at the time of this writing) organizations can get the benefit of additional protection since they can protect their workload data from software corruption or data loss scenarios as well. In addition, organizations can always test their backups by performing a restore of data periodically.

Source of Information : Microsoft System Center