To back up Azure VMs with daily snapshots and retention policies (keep dailies 30 days, weeklies 12 weeks), what must be configured first?
A.A storage account with GRS
Backup service handles its own storage — you don't create accounts for it.
B.A Recovery Services vault + backup policy
Vault + policy = the Azure Backup pattern. Correct.
C.Azure Site Recovery replication
ASR replicates for failover — not backup/retention.
D.Managed disk snapshots in each region
Manual snapshots can't do scheduled retention or app-consistent restores.
Why this answer
Azure Backup requires a Recovery Services vault (the management/storage container) plus a backup policy (schedule + retention) applied to protected VMs. Site Recovery is replication for DR — different goal; manual disk snapshots lack policy management and restores.
Correct answer: B · Last reviewed 2026-02-14
Official AWS references
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