If an Azure VM is deleted accidentally, what is the recommended approach to restore it from Azure Backup, and which configuration settings are preserved during the restoration?

Question

If an Azure VM is deleted accidentally, what is the recommended approach to restore it from Azure Backup, and which configuration settings are preserved during the restoration?

Priyadarshini 120

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Suchitra Suregaunkar 16,780 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello Priyadarshini Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A platform.

I understand the urgency when a VM has been deleted unintentionally. The good news is that deleting an Azure VM does not delete its backup data the backup item and all its recovery points remain in the Recovery Services vault, so the VM can be recovered.

Step 1 – Confirm the backup item is still present

Go to your Recovery Services vault → Backup items → Azure Virtual Machine. Your deleted VM should still be listed there along with its recovery points.

If the backup item itself was also deleted, it will be in a soft-deleted state (shown with a red soft-delete icon). Select it and choose Undelete this brings back all restore points and moves the item to am"stop protection with retain data" state, from where you can restore. The default soft-delete retention is 14 days and can be extended up to 180 days, and soft delete is now enabled by default on Recovery Services vaults.

Step 2 – Choose the right restore option

Since the original VM no longer exists, you have two supported options:

Create a new VM – the quickest path. You provide a VM name, resource group and VNet/subnet, and Backup deploys a new VM from the selected recovery point. The new VM must be created in the same region as the source VM. If the VM SKU isn't available in that region, Azure Backup will still restore the disks to the resource group you specified.
Restore disks (recommended for production workloads) – restores the OS and data disks to a resource group and generates a deployment template. This is the option to use when you need to rebuild the VM with its original or customised settings (availability set/zone, managed identity, specific NIC configuration, etc.).

Please note that the Replace existing option will not work in this scenario it requires the original VM to still exist, and is explicitly unsupported once the VM has been deleted.

If the original region or subscription isn't usable, Cross Region Restore (to the Azure paired region) and Cross Subscription Restore are also supported.

Step 3 – What gets preserved

The recovery point contains your OS disk and all data disks exactly as they were at the time of backup, so the data and disk layout come back intact.

Settings that live outside the disks are not carried over automatically. VM name, resource group and virtual network are chosen by you at restore time, and network access settings are assigned during the restore. Items such as public IPs, NSG associations, load balancer / availability set / zone placement, VM extensions, tags, managed identities and boot diagnostics need to be reconfigured afterwards. This is precisely why the Restore disks + template approach is preferable when the VM must return with its original configuration you can edit the template before deploying.

Step 4 – After the restore

Re-enable backup on the restored VM; it is not automatically re-protected under the original policy.

One important point to keep in mind for the future: soft delete protects backup data only. If a VM was never configured with Azure Backup, its deletion cannot be reversed so I'd recommend ensuring all critical VMs are protected.

Official documentation

Restore VMs using the Azure portal: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-arm-restore-vms
About the Azure VM restore process: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/about-azure-vm-restore
Soft delete for virtual machines: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/soft-delete-virtual-machines
Secure by default with soft delete: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/secure-by-default

Please give this a try and let me know how it goes — happy to help further if you hit any errors during the restore.

If the answer helped, do click Accept Answer and Upvote for "was this answer helpful" so others in the community can benefit.

Thanks,

Suchitra.

0 comments

1 additional answer

Your answer

Answer 1

If an Azure VM is deleted accidentally, the recommended approach is to go to the corresponding backup item in the Recovery Services vault and restore the VM from a recovery point.

For the restore method:

Use Create new to create a new VM from the recovery point.
Use Replace existing only when the original VM still exists and the Transfer Data to Vault subtask completed successfully. Since the VM was deleted, Replace existing can't be used.

What is preserved or restored depends on the restore option:

Create a new VM quickly restores a basic VM from the recovery point.
Restore disk is recommended when custom reconstruction is needed, such as special network configurations or additional customization.

Configuration behavior during restore:

NSG information at VNet, subnet, and NIC level is supported for backup and restore.
For VMs with special network configurations such as internal or external load balancing, multiple NICs, or multiple reserved IP addresses, use Restore Disk and then recreate the VM to match the required network setup.
If the VM had Public IP and NAT gateway, NICs won't be created automatically during that special-configuration restore scenario.
For a full VM restore, Azure changes resource names such as disk names, containers used by the disks, public IP addresses, and network interface names to keep resources unique.
A restored VM created through full VM restore isn't added to an availability set.

If the backup item itself was soft-deleted, the VM must first be undeleted in the Recovery Services vault before performing the restore.

References: