Profile Applicability:
 Level 1

Description:
 Cross Region Restore (CRR) allows Azure Backup Vaults to restore backup data to a different Azure region than where it was originally backed up. Enabling CRR provides enhanced disaster recovery capabilities by ensuring data availability even if the primary region experiences an outage or disaster.

Rationale:
 Enabling Cross Region Restore strengthens business continuity and resiliency by allowing recovery of critical backup data in an alternate region. This reduces downtime risks caused by regional failures and supports compliance with disaster recovery policies.

Impact:

  • Pros:

    • Improves disaster recovery options and reduces recovery time objectives (RTO).

    • Provides geographic redundancy and higher availability.

    • Supports compliance with data residency and disaster recovery regulations.

  • Cons:

    • May increase costs due to data transfer and storage in multiple regions.

    • Requires proper planning and validation of cross-region restore procedures.

Default Value:
 Cross Region Restore is disabled by default and must be explicitly enabled on Backup Vaults.

Pre-requisites:

  • Azure Recovery Services Vault configured with backup data replication enabled.

  • Permissions to modify backup vault settings.

  • Understanding of organizational disaster recovery requirements.

Remediation

Test Plan:

Using Azure Portal:

  1. Navigate to https://portal.azure.com.

  2. Open Recovery Services Vaults and select the target vault.

  3. Go to Backup Infrastructure > Backup Configuration or Properties.

  4. Verify that Cross Region Restore is enabled.

Using Azure CLI:

1. Check the Cross Region Restore status:

az backup vault show --name <vault-name> --resource-group <resource-group> --query properties.crossRegionRestoreFlag

2. Confirm the value is Enabled or true.

Implementation Plan

Using Azure Portal:

  1. Navigate to the Backup Vault’s Backup Configuration or Properties.

  2. Enable Cross Region Restore option.

  3. Save the settings and verify status.

Using Azure CLI:

1. Enable Cross Region Restore:

az backup vault update --name <vault-name> --resource-group <resource-group> --set properties.crossRegionRestoreFlag=Enabled

2. Confirm the update by re-checking the vault properties.

Backout Plan

Using Azure Portal:

  1. Disable Cross Region Restore if needed by toggling off the setting.

  2. Communicate potential impacts on disaster recovery plans.

Using Azure CLI:

1. Disable Cross Region Restore:

az backup vault update --name <vault-name> --resource-group <resource-group> --set properties.crossRegionRestoreFlag=Disabled


References: