Recently introduced the ability to Backup to generate the reports necessary to Azure easily check the status of resource protection, details on the different backup jobs configured, the actual storage utilization and status of its alert. Particularly interesting is the ability to generate reports also cross subscription and cross Azure vault. All this is made possible by using Power BI allowing you to have a high degree of flexibility in the generation and customization of reports. To see the benefits of this feature and evaluate how to analyze data through Power BI I invite you to consult the post "Gain business insights using Power BI reports for Azure Backup". In this article we will analyze the necessary steps to configure reporting Azure Backup.
By logging in from Azure portal to Recovery Service Vault that contains the resources protected the message of the availability of this new feature:
Figure 1 – Notice of availability of the new reporting capabilities in Recovery Services vault
To enable the functionality you need to position yourself in the settings of Recovery Services vault and under "Monitoring and Reports" select "Backup Reports":
Figure 2 – Configuring reports
By selecting the "Configure" button starts the configuration process that requires two distinct steps. In the first step you must select the Storage Account on which will store the information needed for the generation of reports. There is also the possibility to send this information to a Log Analytics workspace. For each type of log, you can select the retention period, which applies only to information that is located on the Storage Account and not to those invited to the workspace OMS. By setting to 0 days retention period the data is never removed from the Storage Account.
Figure 3 – Step 1: Diagnostics configuration
All ’ in the storage account is created an appropriate container to save logs from Azure Backup named insights-logs-azurebackupreport:
Figure 4 – Azure Backup container for jobs of Azure Backup
The second step of Setup requires access to the portal Power BI and the addition of’Azure Backup Content Pack performing the following steps:
Figure 5 – Adding Azure Backup Content Pack from the portal Power BI
At this point you must enter the name of the Account on which Storage, during the step 1 the configuration, you have chosen to save backup information.
Figure 6 – Storage Account name
In the next step, we require authentication using the account access key storage:
Figure 7 – Insert key to authenticate the Storage Account
After you complete these steps by the portal Power BI using the dashboard, you can consult all information relating to Azure Backup and if necessary customize reports to suit your needs.
Figure 8 – Azure Backup Dashboards present in the portal Power BI
Having chosen to send diagnostic information to Log Analytics you can, by accessing the portal OMS, query the repository by using the following query, and retrieve information about Azure Backup:
Figure 9 – Search for events of Azure Backup in Log Analytics
Using the View Designer, you can also build a custom view of OMS using data from Azure Backup collected in Log Analytics.
Conclusions
This new feature enables you to have complete control of your infrastructure and backup status to easily keep tabs on SLAs in compliance with the corporate compliance. All in easy way and using a fully managed cloud solution. All you need is a subscription account Azure storage and Power BI. Analyzing data collected through Power BI is also extremely flexible thanks to the extensive customization capabilities provided by the tool.
