vault-tiers

name	vault-tiers
description	Standard vs Enhanced Recovery Services Vault

Vault Tiers

When to use this skill

• New vault design
• Migrating from Standard

Key concepts

• Enhanced policy supports multiple backups per day, Trusted Launch VMs, hourly RPO for some workloads.
• Standard remains for legacy workloads with simple daily backup.
• Vault replication choice: LRS / GRS / ZRS / RA-GRS — pick based on durability and CRR need.
• GRS is required for Cross-Region Restore.
• Switching tiers requires careful policy migration; some can't be downgraded.

Azure CLI examples

az backup vault create -g <rg> -n vault-prod --location eastus2
az backup vault backup-properties set -g <rg> -n vault-prod \
  --backup-storage-redundancy GeoRedundant

Common pitfalls

• Picking LRS and later needing CRR — requires vault recreate.
• Mixing Standard + Enhanced policies awkwardly across VMs in the same vault.
• Forgetting that ZRS provides zone-redundancy but not cross-region.

References

• Microsoft Learn: search for "Vault Tiers Azure VM" on https://learn.microsoft.com

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