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Yee_Beng's avatar
Yee_Beng
Copper Contributor
Oct 15, 2026

Database Backup in Azure VM with SQL

Hello,

I have a Windows server 2016 with SQL 2016 EXPRESS uplifted to Azure.  The Azure VM is backing up with recovery type as "Snapshot and Vault -Standard" with Application Consistent. When I checked on the database backup history, it shows databases are backing up as well, hope to get more knowledge on 

1.How to view SQL database backup detail from Azure portal?

2.How to restore the databases since the databases have been backup to Azure.

Thank you.

sql

1 Reply

  • MW_DEV's avatar
    MW_DEV
    Brass Contributor
    Oct 16, 2026

    Hi, based on your description, you're using Azure VM Backup with application-consistent snapshots, rather than SQL Server workload-level backups. These are two different backup mechanisms.

    Azure VM Backup uses VSS to create application-consistent snapshots, and for SQL Server it triggers a VSS Full (Copy-Only) backup by default. That's why you can see backup entries in the SQL Server backup history.

    If you want to view backup details in Azure Portal, navigate to Recovery Services vault → Backup items → Azure Virtual Machine, select your VM, and review its backup jobs and available recovery points. However, since this is a VM-level backup, you won't see individual SQL database backups listed separately.

    So how to restore the databases? With VM-level backups, you can restore the entire VM or restore its disks from a recovery point. To recover an individual database, you can restore the disks to a separate VM, access the SQL Server database files (.mdf/.ldf), and attach or recover the database in SQL Server.

    If you need database-level backup management and restore operations directly from Azure Portal, consider configuring Azure Backup for SQL Server in Azure VMs instead.

    Microsoft documentation:

    - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-vms-introduction 

    - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-arm-restore-vms 

    - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-sql-database 

    Hope this helps!