Disaster Recovery to Microsoft Azure

Disaster Recovery to Microsoft Azure is a cost-efficient disaster recovery solution integrated with the Acronis Cyber Protection service. It leverages the power and flexibility of the Microsoft Azure enterprise-grade platform as a target DR site. This solution uses cold backups (recovery points), which can be stored in Microsoft Azure, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, or a partner-hosted cloud storage. The entire DR site configuration and orchestration are managed centrally from the Cyber Protect console. Your own Microsoft Azure subscription is used as the target DR site.

Automation and orchestration include the following capabilities:

• Initial DR site configuration
• Automated test failover with AI-powered screenshot verification
• Orchestrated failover
• Automated failback to both physical and virtual machines, with near-zero downtime
• Runbooks to automate key disaster recovery scenarios
• On-demand workers (temporary agents) that eliminate the need for permanent virtual appliances
• Cold DR – Backups are stored in the storage, but no compute resources (virtual machines) are running until a disaster occurs. Cold DR provides cost-effective recovery with minimal Azure infrastructure usage.
• Warm DR (coming in future releases) – backups are incrementally replicated to the Azure warm storage and, in case of disaster, are ready to run as Azure virtual machines. Warm DR provides near-zero RTO.

You retain full control over the underlying infrastructure and Microsoft Azure capabilities, with the flexibility to use native Azure services or integrate custom solutions - such as third-party firewalls and SD-WAN appliances - by connecting them to the selected recovery networks at the DR site. This solution also supports failover of Windows desktops running Windows 10 or Windows 11.