How to cancel the recurring backups for servers that have the Azure Backup Agent installed

Question

I work for a MSP and have some clients that have offboarded our services. We no longer have access to some windows servers that have the Azure Backup Agent installed that are running daily backups for those servers. Is there a way that I can cancel that backup schedule from the portal or at the very least block the backup from being stored to our account?

Answer 1

Hello Matthew Plouff,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum, thank you for posting your query here!

I understand that you are intending to stop and delete the backups for the servers which you don't have access.

Here is the clear explanation to stop & delete the backup items.

Firstly, you need to locate the associated recovery services vault for the servers where the backups have been configured.

Before going to stop/delete backup data, you need know about the security feature (Soft delete) for the Recovery services vault (RSV).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-security-feature-cloud?tabs=azure-portal#enable-and-disable-soft-delete

If you really want to delete the backup items instantly from the RSV, you need to disable the Soft delete first.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-security-feature-cloud?tabs=azure-portal#disable-soft-delete

Once the soft delete is disabled follow the below steps.

• Select the Recovery Services Vault where your backup items are stored.
• In the Recovery Services Vault, under the "Backup" section, click on "Backup Items".
• Select the type of backup item you want to stop (e.g., Azure VM, SQL Server, etc.).
• In the list of backup items, select the item you want to stop the backup for.
• In the "Backup Item" details page, click "Stop backup" (usually on the top or in the settings).
• A confirmation window will appear asking if you want to delete recovery points or retain them. If you select "Delete backup data", all backup data associated with that item will be deleted from the vault.
• Confirm by selecting "Yes" to stop the backup and delete the data.

After stopping the backup, if you want to delete the backup data permanently, follow these additional steps:

• Go back to "Backup Items" in your Recovery Services Vault.
• Select the backup item you stopped.
• On the Backup Item's page, click on "Delete" (or "Delete Backup Data" if prompted).
• Confirm the deletion.
• This will remove the backup data from the Recovery Services Vault. which means the backup item (Azure VM, SQL Server, etc) will be deleted from the RSV.

Hope this helps!

Please reply if you there are any challenges while performing delete operation post disablement of soft-delete feature.

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