Azure Backup could improve by offering better integration for Oracle databases and enhancing features like granular restore and backup compliance capabilities. These additions would further enhance its versatility and usability for a wider range of scenarios.

My company faces a lot of difficulties in restoring any encrypted VM backup. Some user-friendly automation solutions should be provided in the Azure portal to help us when we try to restore any encrypted virtual machine or disk to avoid complexities during the restoration process.

Actually, there is no issue. It simply saves your backup outside of your premises.

I would like to see better pricing.

It still does not have a lot of customization, especially if your workloads are not in Azure. More and more customers are looking at hybrid solutions when they have something on Azure, a data center, and a private cloud. Your backup solution may not be customizable enough to suit your requirements when you have a hybrid environment. If it's completely Azure, Azure Backup is an excellent solution. However, there are better alternatives when discussing a multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud solution.

In addition, Though not in my personal opinion or experience, certain security and compliance questions have been raised around Azure, and that's where Azure needs to buckle down as well.

While Azure Backup allows ingress data, the egress data is chargeable, which should be excluded. Our clients mostly complain that taking a backup with Azure Backup is free, but retrieving the backup from Azure is chargeable.

It is easy to back up small data and run your system in Azure Backup. After your system is ready, you have to sync your system with Azure Backup, which costs more. There are two segments of people. One segment is happy because they got the emergency recovery of their system. They mention that they feel better if they have to pay for the backup or the egress data because their system is okay. Some people are unhappy because their backup is available, but they have to pay for it. Only a small portion (around 20-30 %) of people fall into this segment, but most are happy.

The product could improve its performance.

The recovery time could be faster.

We faced some issues synchronizing the information in Azure when the storage was changed. We have to troubleshoot a lot. We do not know the reason for the issue.

Azure lacks sufficient solutions for a particular scenario, we may need to resort to using third-party applications. In such cases, these applications can be employed to facilitate backup, replication, and the efficient utilization of internet connectivity and bandwidth. They enable us to effectively manage and transfer data while ensuring optimal utilization of network resources. However, it would be a benefit if we did not have to use third-party applications for these operations.

As an additional solution for prospective clients, we can implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) or high availability measures. By setting up DRM or establishing high availability configurations, we can ensure that services remain operational even in the event of downtime. This approach guarantees uninterrupted production and minimizes any negative impact. To deliver this type of solution to clients, the vendor will need to create and provide an architecture and solution that ensures zero downtime.

The product satisfies the need for backups within Azure. However, it is not very flexible in the world of technology. I can’t use the solution to restore another native cloud solution. Azure must add this new feature.

The integration with the record database and integration with other applications will be good, especially with the database piece. MySQL and Oracle are very widely used databases and Azure Backup doesn't have tight integration with them. It only provides the backup of the disc and the virtual machine and associated data, however, it doesn't provide you an application of their backup for non-Microsoft products, especially. That is where SQL Server, which is a Microsoft database, provides a good integration for the initial backup in MySQL which is a widely used database solution. They should actually provide that or you can handle integration with those databases as well.

The most important thing is integration with third-party products. That could be one of the best features. Whenever we have to look for databases or specific applications, that's when things get complicated and where third parties, like Win Backup, Symantec, and other backup solutions come in. The most important thing they can do to improve is to cover at least industry standard databases first.

I didn't see any kind of major flaws or anything. The only thing I would say that could be improved is the reporting. It can be a little more customized or something like that. Maybe they need a little bit more on the dashboard view. The reporting and governance can be a little more fine-tuned.

The restoration of permissions is a functionality that could be improved. If I want to restore permissions, I should be able to do this. 

Secondly, there is a limitation of 99 files restores per day which means that we can't complete a huge file restore. We would like Azure to increase the number of the possible file restorations.

I think the extensibility onto hybrid environments needs a bit of tweaking. It's great in the cloud but when you're on-prem it requires quite a bit of infrastructure in terms of Azure ARC and bringing it back. 

In Avamar, the file-based restores are very quick and fast, whereas, in Azure Backup, VM restore is super easy, but if I have to do a file or a folder restore, I have to mount the entire VM image. I have to wait for some time for it to be mounted, and then I have to go inside and then check the file and copy it somewhere. It's a bit of a manual process, whereas in Avamar, you can directly select a file and folder, and it'll recover with whatever permissions you want. That's better in Avamar, and that's the only thing that's lacking in Azure. File or folder recovery is complex and time-consuming.

When attempting to back up encrypted files and later restore them to another location, it's essential to configure your service principal names. Many Windows administrators are familiar with this and handle it manually. It would be beneficial to receive alert messages if something isn't configured correctly, for instance, if service principal names are missing, a message could prompt you to set them up. This is a common challenge shared by various backup programs and administrators who are unaware of these requirements tend to overlook them, rendering encrypted file restores impossible. It is essential to test the restore functionality to ensure it works as expected. Also, having configuration assistance with quality of service features would be valuable for administrators. This would allow administrators to allocate resources effectively, deciding how much bandwidth to assign to different backup tasks. An upcoming feature, that appears promising, is the platform connectivity feature. This feature will apply to various types of networks, including video networks and other backup networks. It would be great to see a similar capability integrated into Azure Backup in the future.

When it comes to improvements, Microsoft should provide us with an option to explore the logs. So if there's any failure by seeing the error, in some cases, we will be able to resolve it. But 50% of the cases are being handled by Microsoft itself, like getting the logs from the back end. That's the one thing that I've seen that has to be enhanced from Microsoft's end.

Azure Backup is limited to certain workloads. It would be helpful if Microsoft focused on enabling backups for Oracle and other unsupported databases.

The tool's backup should be faster. Azure Backup's support should be faster.

Azure Backup must include features similar to enterprise solutions, such as Veeam.

I believe more options could be available to understand better what's happening in the system. Additionally, automating the client updates and connector updates would be beneficial. Updating the connector from time to time can be challenging, and it could be made more transparent and straightforward for users. Moreover, another drawback lies in the time it takes to test full data backup recovery. Deploying a full recovery takes longer. We need to allocate a longer period for complete data recovery to establish the environment again.

We are using two different types of technology. Side to side and tier to side. Recently, we sent an email regarding this issue. Maybe they could improve the fees. The cost is a bit high.

If we had 100 users, and we are using the backup on servers, it would be helpful if the user could know the level of synchronization that he has done. It can only be done by administrative forces. As an example, if I am the administrator and I have users getting data online, I can see what is happening. However, for the user, if they are experiencing some kind of failure with their data, they do not receive any notification and do not know. It will work, but it will need a lot of customization.

We would like to see some kind of notification given to the user that a file was not synchronized properly or what may have happened. What we are doing now is through a third party system where they will notify us if a file is not synchronized properly inside of his computer.

The compression ratio of the backup data should be improved. Compared to our on-premises solution, the compression of Azure Backup is not as good. For example, if I am backing up up 100 GB of data then it should be compressed by at least 70%. Instead, it is being compressed by 30% to 35%. Because of this, the utilization of resources in terms of cloud storage is increasing. Given that the cost of cloud-based storage is not cheap, this is an area that is in need of improvement.

The interface should be more user-friendly.

The Azure team in Microsoft technical support needs to improve.

More guidelines and information about use-cases should be available for reference online.

Azure Backup has some drawbacks. We can't have the granular level restoration, particularly for the Azure files. Sometimes, indexing doesn't happen in the Azure files. That's why we are keen to have a solution that can consider all the applications, all the OS, and the legacy applications.

One of the disadvantages of Azure Backup is that it doesn't have a MAC backup. In Azure, we cannot take the MAC backup for Mac devices.

Azure Backup's licensing model is very challenging because it doesn't give a clear picture. Whenever we go to the vendor or the OEM to buy some of the workloads, we have to take everything. We have to pay for the VMs and the storage in the Azure platform. Hence, the licensing model should be very simple for the end user to get things easily.

The only issue we have right now is the amount of time it takes to restore. When we attempt to restore a virtual machine, it can take hours. This is an area that could be improved.

The length of time it takes to restore is our main source of frustration. It would be beneficial to shorten the time it takes.

We had issues with shared storage in the past where it couldn't be included in the backup. Shared storage, or shared disc, wasn't available. I believe Microsoft promised to put it in their pipeline for improvement in order to add this, but I haven't double-checked. This was the issue with shared managed discs, and not being included in this backup scope.

If the shared managed disc could be included with the backup, it would be better.

The product must improve on a database level. It should be made more application-aware.

The Azure Backup support for on-premises service is limited.

The file-level restore procedure should be more straightforward.

As I don't work directly with the solution (my team does), I don't have any notes for improvement.

Technical support can be slow to respond at times.

Azure Backup is constantly improving its features. However, it can be further improved by continuously meeting its compliance requirements.

We're hoping the price of the solution won't increase in the coming months when Azure is due to review all its products. I think that what the product lacks now is an AI system; if we had that, we'd be able to more easily upgrade the hardware system.  

It doesn't have the option to have a backup from the database. It has a backup for the files, folders, and backup only the whole virtual machine. But if I need to do a backup from the Oracle database, from an Exchange server or from SharePoint, this ability isn't there. There is no application backup. 

Azure Backup could improve the backup data copies because they are not immutable.

Ransomware protection is missing in Azure Backup.

It would be helpful if it included the ability to perform Office 365 backups so that we didn't have to use additional software.

In the next release, I would like to see the ability to back up to different cloud providers. For example, some customers would like to be able to synchronize with an Amazon data store. It is always best to follow the 3-2-1 Backup Rule.

The solution needs to be fully supported by VMware. It works, but when you go to VMware they say that Azure Backup is not recommended, or is not a very good solution.

I would like to have an application-level backup, rather than interface-level only. Examples would be Exchange backup,  SharePoint backup, and SQL backup.

The support for Office365 backup is atrocious and is something that has to be improved. 

I would like to have the option to increase the frequency of the backups. Azure Backup does backups on an hourly basis, but I would prefer it to take backups more often. 

They need to improve the frequency of the backup. You can only backup one to three times a day. It would be better to back up continuously throughout the day.

I would like to see better integration with more products, and more services. 

There are new products coming up all of the time with better integration. There are a number of things that are happening.

I once tried restoring a Linux environment, and the size of the Linux VM or the data disk was really huge. It took a really long time to restore the environment and send the data from the storage to the disk. It took around 25 to 30 minutes, which was much longer than I anticipated. They can improve the duration of such restore operations.

In the next release, it would also be good if they could reduce the duration for transferring the data from their storage to the actual storage while creating a virtual machine. They can reduce the duration or increase the data transfer rate. 

The solution may be better suited to certain companies over others. It depends on the type of data you are working with.

The solution is quite technical. I wouldn't describe it as user friendly. It could be simplified a lot to make it more accessible to the average user.

I would like for the backup of VMs to be improved. The first thing our customers require is for me to back up their VM. I would like to do the backup using the integration. But I don't think the customers I am managing are ready for this yet. 

Technical support for this solution is good but it can still be improved.

The user interface is a little bit confusing and it could be better. It took some time to learn, although I was able to read about it and adapt. For a customer without backup experience, it will take longer to get used to. The same goes for customers without cloud backup experience because the options differ from what existed in their on-premises solution.

The price of this solution is something they should focus on improving.

The backend of this type of solution is complex, so stability and security can always be improved.

The compression rate is not as good as some competing products, so it needs improvement. We have read that the compression rate is 20%, whereas Commvault is 60% to 70%.

We have a concern with the backup when were are working with VMs that are running in Barracuda Firewall because it usually fails. This is a prominent issue. If I have 100 VMs then two or three of the backups fail.

The price of this solution should be lowered because it is the biggest complaint from my customers.

Technical support is in need of improvement.

The interface needs improvement and it doesn't offer as many features as other third-party backup solutions.

The solution is still in its infancy; it's not a mature product yet.

There is no MARS agent for Linux, which is a problem for us because we have systems that use Linux Red Hat and Ubuntu.

There are other things missing in Azure that require us to use third-party tools. We would prefer to use Azure alone because it would be easier, as well as more secure.

The time required to restore files should be a little faster. It takes quite a long time to restore files at the moment.

I would like to see more automation, integration, and security. The price could be better.

The monitoring and tagging features could be improved. 

I would like to see more functionality in regards to the mapping.