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AlwaysTheLearner's avatar
AlwaysTheLearner
Copper Contributor
Jul 31, 2025
Solved

Azure SQL Managed Instance - DB Backup Retention

Dear All,   We have requirement for backup retention as below:   (1) PITR for 2 months  (2) To be able to restore backup of any day (time doesn't matter) for 1 year   Can you please advise how...
Managed Instance
  • MoritzG's avatar
    MoritzG
    Aug 06, 2025

    Hi,

     

    Towards (1):

    Azure SQL Managed Instance supports Point-in-Time Restore (PITR) for a maximum of 35 days. To enable this, configure the short-term retention policy to 35 days using the Azure portal, PowerShell, or CLI. 

    To extend Point-in-Time Restore (PITR) beyond the 35-day platform limit in Azure SQL Managed Instance, you could manually export transaction logs continuously to external storage. Once exported, you can use the Log Replay Service (LRS) or a custom log replay workflow to apply these logs and reconstruct the database state at any specific point in time, beyond the native PITR window.

    Please note: This approach is relatively complex, not natively supported end-to-end, and requires custom automation and scripting for exporting, storing, and replaying logs. 

     

    Towards (2):

    Long-Term Retention (LTR) for Azure SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI) only supports weekly backups directly (not daily), unlike Azure SQL Database. However, you can achieve daily backups with 1-year retention using the following:

    Use automated SQL Agent Jobs or Azure Automation to:

    1. Run a daily full export
    2. Save each backup to Azure Blob Storage.
    3. Apply an Azure Storage lifecycle management policy to retain each backup for 1 year (365 days).
    4. Use these backups for manual restore in case of data loss, corruption, or auditing requirements.

     

    Best regards!

Jamony's avatar
Jamony
MCT
Jun 27, 2026

For Azure SQL Managed Instance, built-in point-in-time restore has a short-term retention limit. It cannot provide daily restore points for two months or one year in the PITR model.

 

Use these options depending on the requirement:

 

1. Short-term retention/PITR for normal operational restore needs, up to the supported short-term limit.

2. Long-term retention for monthly/yearly compliance-style retained backups.

3. Copy-only backups to Azure Blob Storage if you need your own scheduled backup copies, such as daily backups retained for a year.

 

If the requirement is "daily backup retained for 1 year", I would not rely on PITR alone. Use a planned copy-only backup strategy or LTR policy depending on whether you need every daily backup or only long-term restore milestones.