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Afi Backup for Microsoft Azure

Afi SaaS backup for Azure provides comprehensive protection for Azure virtual machines, Azure SQL databases, Azure PostgreSQL servers, and Azure file shares, including configuration and data.

Afi adopts multi-tenant organizational and access model tailored to enterprise use-cases, complete with comprehensive audit for user and system activities as well as extensive monitoring capabilities. To offer granular access configuration as well as backup and data management features, Afi leverages native Azure resource group hierarchy, providing convenient group-based mass-management for service operators and protected resource groups.

Virtual machine backup and recovery

Afi provides backup for both virtual machine configuration and data as well as recovery to a new virtual machine with the same or custom configuration. Backup is based on the Azure restore point technology, ensuring crash consistency for multi-disk configurations as well as application consistency for certain Windows and Linux applications:

  • Application consistency is guaranteed for Windows applications implementing a VSS writer.
  • For Linux applications, application consistency can be achieved using pre-/post- scripts.

During a virtual machine backup, Afi creates a restore point for the virtual machine and then synchronizes the corresponding snapshot data to the Afi cloud. Restore points are kept on the Azure side for 7 days to allow fast recovery from recent backup snapshots. To deliver fast and lightweight incremental backups, Afi backup for Azure relies on the cloud-native CBT (Changed Block Tracking) technology.

Database backup and recovery

Afi database backup includes database configuration, schema, and data, and provides full-fidelity database recovery as well as table data export as CSV. Both Azure SQL and Azure PostgreSQL backup implementations provide strong consistency guarantees at the database level.

Azure Files backup and recovery

Afi Azure Files backup protects Azure file shares, including storage account and share configuration, file and folder data, metadata, and permission information. You can browse and search inside Azure file share backups, download selected files and folders, and recover a full share or selected content back to Azure.

Browse, search, and explore backup data

Afi offers a unique feature set for navigating and accessing backup data, simplifying day-to-day backup management for large and constantly evolving production infrastructures, including:

  • Detailed configuration preview for virtual machines (including disks, network interfaces, and public IP addresses), databases, and Azure file shares;
  • Ability to download virtual machine, database, or Azure file share configuration as JSON;
  • Volume contents browse, search, and file/folder download for supported volume configurations;
  • Azure file share content browse, search, and selected file/folder download;
  • Ability to search across table data by primary key;
  • Ability to browse and preview SQL schema and table data as well as download selected SQL tables as CSV;
  • Ability to view virtual machine, database, and Azure file share configuration changes history;
  • Global search across all or a selected set of backups in a tenant;
  • Annotation labels highlighting resource configuration and database schema changes.

Monitoring, reliability, and support

As a SaaS backup solution, Afi takes a proactive approach to service reliability and resiliency by implementing continuous monitoring of service health and activities (e.g., backups, restores). Any issues detected by Afi’s monitoring system are proactively investigated and resolved, in most cases even before they are noticed or reported by account administrators.

Afi is resilient to Microsoft API errors and temporary throttling spikes, relieving account administrators of the need to constantly monitor the service or investigate transient backup issues.

Additionally, Afi offers 24/7 technical support to address all requests, from technical configuration and product questions to service issue reports.