Restore Azure Blobs

This article describes how to use the Azure portal to perform restores for Azure Blob from operational or vaulted backups. With operational backups, you can restore all block blobs in storage accounts with operational backup configured or a subset of blob content to any point-in-time within the retention range. With vaulted backups, you can perform restores using a recovery point created, based on your backup schedule.

To initiate a restore through the Azure Business Continuity Center, follow these steps:

1. Go to Business Continuity Center, and then select Recover.

   

2. On the Recover pane, under Resources managed by, select Azure Blobs (Azure Storage) as the Datasource type, which you want to recover, and then select Backup as a solution through which you want to recover the item. Click Select to select the item on which you want to perform the recovery action.

   

3. On the Select recovery point tab, select the type of backup you want to restore.

   • For operational backup, choose the date and time you want to restore your data. You can also use the slider to choose the point-in-time to restore from. The restoration details appear next to the date, which shows the valid duration from which you can restore your data. Operational backup for blobs is a continuous backup and gives granular control over points to recover data from.

     

   • For vaulted backup, choose a recovery point from which you want to perform the restore.

     

   Note

   The time mentioned here is your local time.

4. On the Restore parameters tab, select the options based on the type of backups you've chosen to perform restore.

   

   For operational backup, choose one of these options:

   • Restore all blobs in the storage account: Using this option restores all block blobs in the storage account by rolling them back to the selected point in time. Storage accounts containing large amounts of data or witnessing a high churn may take longer times to restore.

   • Browse and restore selected containers: Using this option allows you to browse and select up to 10 containers to restore. You must have sufficient permissions to view the containers in the storage account, or else you might not be able to see the contents of the storage account.

   • Select blobs to restore using prefix match: This option lets you restore a subset of blobs using a prefix match. You can specify up to 10 lexicographical ranges of blobs within a single container or across multiple containers to return those blobs to their previous state at a given point in time. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

     • You can use a forward slash (/) to delineate the container name from the blob prefix
     • The start of the range specified is inclusive, however the specified range is exclusive.

   For more information on using prefixes to restore blob ranges, see this section.

   For vaulted backup, choose one of these options:

   • Restore all backed-up containers: Use this option to restore all backed-up containers in the storage account.
   • Browse and select containers to restore: Use this option to browse and select up to 100 containers to restore. You must have sufficient permission to view the containers in the storage account, or you can't see the contents of the storage account. Select the target storage account (and its subscription), that is, the storage account where the data needs to be restored.

   You can optionally specify a set of prefixes to restore specific blobs within a container. To provide the list of prefixes, select Add/Edit containers corresponding to each container that you select for restore.

   Note

   The vault must have the Storage account backup contributor role assigned on the target storage account. Select Validate to ensure that the required permissions to perform the restore are assigned. Once done, proceed to the next tab.

   

5. Once you finish specifying what blobs to restore, continue to the Review + restore tab, and select Restore to initiate the restore.

6. Track restore: Use the Backup Jobs view to track the details and status of restores. To do this, go to Business Continuity Center > Jobs. The status will show In progress while the restore is being performed.

   

   When the restore operation successfully completes, the status will change to Completed. Once the restore completes successfully, you'll be able to read and write blobs in the storage account again.

Consider the following example:

The restore operation shown in the image performs the following actions:

• It restores the complete contents of container1.
• It restores blobs in the lexicographical range blob1 through blob5 in container2. This range restores blobs with names such as blob1, blob11, blob100, blob2, and so on. Because the end of the range is exclusive, it restores blobs whose names begin with blob4, but doesn't restore blobs whose names begin with blob5.
• It restores all blobs in container3 and container4. Because the end of the range is exclusive, this range doesn't restore container5.

• Overview of operational backup for Azure Blobs