One of the first tasks as an Azure Stack Hub operator is to log in to the Administrator portal and check for active alerts. Usually, you see a Backup is not enabled for a location alert, as shown in the following figure. This alert is associated with the Infrastructure Backup Service. If this alert appears, configure an infrastructure backup. Figure 12. Infrastructure backup alert
Enable the Infrastructure Backup Service from the Administration Portal so that Azure Stack Hub can generate infrastructure backups. If there is a catastrophic failure, the hardware partner can use cloud recovery to restore your environment from these backups. The cloud recovery ensures that operators and users can log in to the portal after recovery is complete. Users have their subscriptions restored, including:
Role-based access permissions and roles
Original plans and offers
Previously defined compute, storage, and network quotas
Key vault secrets
The following steps enable the Infrastructure Backup Service from the Administration portal and let you configure and run and infrastructure backup.
In the Azure Stack Hub Administration Portal, select All Services, and then under Administration, select Infrastructure backup.
In the Infrastructure Backup configuration wizard, enter the relevant Backup controller settings, such as the Backup storage location and credentials for the SMB file share: \\<external file server>\Backups (it is recommended to store the infrastructure backup externally from Azure Stack Hub).
Click OK.
Define the backup frequency and retention policies.
Provide your Encryption Settings Certificate.
Note: If you already have a certificate, details are not provided.
If you do not have a signed certificate, you must create a self-signed certificate for your infrastructure backups. This certificate uses both public and private keys, but only the public key is exported in the certificate.
In PowerShell, to create a self-signed certificate, use the following command, and provide the DNS name and location of the certificate:
$cert = New-SelfSignedCertficate
In the wizard, enter your Encryption Settings Certificate details, and then click OK to save your backup controller settings.
It takes a few minutes to configure the infrastructure backup. A confirmation window appears when the task is completed.
To start the backup process, from the Infrastructure backup dashboard, click Backup Now.
When the backup finishes, the Notifications window displays either a green or red status indicator to report the success or failure of the backup job.
From the Infrastructure Backups dashboard, click Activity log to view the backup activities.
Go to the SMB file share (\\<external file server>\Backups) to verify what is being backed up.
