Azure Backup supports offline disk shipment and increases the number of backup copies and retention policies in Windows

Symptoms

When you use the Microsoft Azure Backup agent in Windows, you experience the following restrictions:

• Azure Backup uses only a single retention policy to back up the data.

• The number of backup copies is limited to 120.

• Azure Backup provides the option of sending the data over network bandwidth alone to the end-user.

Resolution

After you install this update, Azure Backup improves the capabilities as following:

• You can now set multiple retention policies on backup data. Backup data can be stored for multiple years by maintaining more backup copies near- term, and less fewer backup copies as the backup data becomes aged.

• The number of backup copies that can be stored at Azure is increased to 366.

• Azure Backup is now integrated with the Azure Import service to send the initial backup data to Azure datacenter. This lets the customers ship the initial backup data by disk to the nearest Azure datacenter.

Notes

• In this release for Data Protection Manager (DPM), these fixes will be available for protection groups that enable online protection for the first time. For Windows Server or a Windows client, these fixes will be available for the computers that are scheduling backup for the first time.

• In this release, offline shipment of the disk for initial backup is available for the datacenters where an Azure Import facility is available.

For more information, check the new features in Azure Backup.

Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

References

See the terminology that Microsoft uses to describe software updates.