HYCU for Azure Changes How Enterprises May Deploy Backup in Azure Cloud

This article was written on March 31, 2020 by Jerome M. Wendt, president and founder of DCIG, LLC.

Cloud-Native Microsoft Azure VM Backups
Providing certainty in uncertain times

During these uncertain times, everyone wants some certainty. People want certainty that when they go out to shop and dine, they do not contract the corona virus. They want certainty some company will find and develop a vaccine. They want certainty this economic shutdown will end sooner than later.

Hopefully, we will have answers to these concerns very soon. Thankfully, in other areas, enterprises can experience a higher degree of certainty about a successful outcome. In the backup arena, enterprises that need a viable cloud-native backup solution for their Azure VMs may now turn to HYCU for Azure.

Cloud-Washed Enterprise Backup Solutions for Azure Predominate
The Azure cloud already represents one of the leading general-purpose cloud providers. Despite this leadership position, Microsoft, to date, offered almost no enterprise caliber cloud-native backup solutions in its marketplace.

The term cloud-washed might best describe most enterprise backup offerings available in the Azure marketplace. While they protect Azure VMs, they were not originally designed for Azure cloud backup. Rather, they were solutions intended for on-premises backups that got re-purposed for Azure.

As a result, enterprises may neither deploy them as cloud-native applications nor capitalize on the features that Azure offers. To deploy them, they must separately acquire and license the backup software. Once acquired, they deploy it in the cloud on a VM that they host and pay for. At that point, they must still manage the solution in the same manner as other on-premises solutions.

Enterprise Cloud-native Backup for the Azure Cloud
The introduction of HYCU for Azure changes how enterprises may deploy backup in the Azure cloud. Available in the Microsoft marketplace, using HYCU for Azure enterprises may immediately start backing up VMs in the Azure cloud. There are no software licenses to procure, no VMs to acquire to host it, and no software to install on the VM.

Runs as a Native Azure Cloud Service
HYCU for Azure runs as a service in the cloud. One only must select it as a backup solution from the Azure Marketplace. Once selected, one may start backing up VMs in the Azure cloud.

Being available as a service, HYCU handles all the ongoing backend management and support of its software. It allocates Azure resources (compute and storage) as it needs them. It leverages the services that Azure has to offer. It applies fixes, patches, and upgrades to its software. In short, it handles all the backup management tasks no one really wants to do anyway and frees enterprises to focus on backup.

Makes Backup a Snap
To accelerate the initial backup, HYCU for Azure natively provides four default backup policies. Using these policies, enterprises can better tune the backup frequency to the application running on each VM.

HYCU for Azure also alleviates the need for enterprises to manually configure backup for each VM. It offers a central dashboard that displays all their VMs in Azure. Using this console, they can select the VMs they want and apply a single backup policy to them. Even if they miss a VM and fail to apply a policy to it, no worries. HYCU for Azure scans the environment for unprotected VMs every five minutes and applies a default backup policy to them.

No-hassle Billing and Technical Support
HYCU for Azure’s biggest perk may perhaps be its no-hassle billing and technical support. It only bills for the storage capacity used in the Microsoft Azure cloud. HYCU includes this charge as part of the invoice each enterprise receives from Microsoft Azure.

Further, HYCU includes technical support with its offering. Other backup software offerings may charge an additional 20% or more annually for technical support. HYCU chose not to take this approach. It offers technical support, to include premium technical support, as part of its monthly fee.

HYCU for Azure: Enterprise Cloud-Native Backup Certainty for Azure
As every enterprise cloud provider matures, it needs an ecosystem of providers to mature along with it. These providers give enterprises the confidence and certainty to adopt its core services. HYCU for Azure represents such a backup solution for the Azure cloud.

Ever since HYCU came out of stealth mode about three years ago, it has developed a backup solution optimized for the platforms which it protects. It started with Nutanix before tackling the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). In both cases, it always capitalizes on the native data protection and management features each OS offers. In so doing, The company seeks to make backup a natural part of managing the environment – not yet another separate process to manage.

HYCU for Azure accomplishes that objective with this latest release. It eliminates the requirement for enterprises to port backup solutions intended for on-premises use into the cloud. Instead, it makes managing VM backups in the Azure cloud a natural extension of managing the Azure environment.

It introduces a portfolio of backup features that enterprises expect and need when performing backups in the Azure cloud. More importantly, it delivers them as part of a cloud-native offering to make them fast, easy, and effective to deploy and manage.