Bringing server back from Azure to On-prem using Veeam

[gabbas]

Hi, not a long ago, we migrated most of our workloads to Azure. We have most of our servers in Azure and also we have some servers in our DC (on-prem). We currently use Veeam backup for Azure to backup servers in Azure and Veeam backup & replication ver 12 to backup our on-prem servers (with local backup repositories). One of our critical servers is having some issues as users keep disconnecting since we have migrated this server to Azure. After investigating for a few weeks, we are looking to bring this server back to on-prem to resolve the issue as its currently affecting our critical business operation.

Here is what we have planned and need your advice on how can we achieve this:
Stage 1 – Create a new storage account in Azure for the purposes of backing up this server.
Stage 2 – Connect the on-premises Veeam backup server to the new storage account created in stage 1 (as an external repo or object repository).
Stage 3 – Backup the server to the newly created storage account in Azure.
Stage 4 – Create a backup copy job on the on-premises Veeam server to copy the backup of this server in stage 1 to local Veeam repositories.
Stage 5 – Perform a restore test to Hyper-V and “smoke test” and record results.

But we have some concerns, as Azure Veeam backups to storage account with different file extensions (instead of .vbk as the normal VBR server does), we are not 100% sure if this will work as planned.
Can we please get some advice on how we can bring this server from Azure to our on-prem HyperV platform with Veeam running in both Azure as well as in on-prem? Many thanks

[david.domask]

Hi Ghulam,

Your plan is pretty fine I would say, though in fact you can skip step 4 and just perform an instant recovery to Hyper-V from the backup in the External Repository, then migrate the instant-recovered VM to production.

But there's no harm in the Backup Copy, just not a needed step Your idea looks nice and proper otherwise.

[gabbas]

Great, thanks David, appreciated. Yes, perhaps that's a better way of doing this, we can skip setp 4 and use the instant recovery instead.