# Ensure Cross Region Restore Is Set to Enabled on Recovery Services Vaults

- Source: https://support.icompaas.com/support/solutions/articles/62000234848-ensure-cross-region-restore-is-set-to-enabled-on-recovery-services-vaults
- Section: [Solutions](https://support.icompaas.com/support/solutions) › [Azure Storage Services Benchmark v1.0.0](https://support.icompaas.com/support/solutions/62000112694) › [Azure Storage Services Benchmark](https://support.icompaas.com/support/solutions/folders/62000169262)
- Last updated: 2026-05-29
- Publisher: iCompaas, Inc. (https://www.icompaas.com)

**Profile Applicability:** Level 2

**Description:** Cross Region Restore (CRR) allows Azure Recovery Services Vaults to restore backup data to a different Azure region than the one where it was originally backed up. Enabling CRR enhances disaster recovery capabilities by ensuring availability of backup data even if the primary region experiences outages or disasters.

**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 and data residency requirements.

**Impact:**

-   Pros:  
    
    -   Improves disaster recovery options and reduces recovery time objectives (RTO).  
        
    -   Provides geographic redundancy and high availability.  
        
    -   Supports compliance with regulatory and organizational policies.  
        
-   Cons:  
    
    -   May increase costs due to cross-region data replication and storage.  
        
    -   Requires planning and validation of cross-region restore procedures.  
        

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

**Pre-requisites:**

-   Azure Recovery Services Vault configured with backup replication.  
    
-   Permissions to modify vault backup settings.  
    
-   Understanding of disaster recovery policies.  
    

### **Remediation**

**Test Plan:**

**Using Azure Portal:**

1.  Navigate to [https://portal.azure.com](https://portal.azure.com/).  
    
2.  Go to Recovery Services Vaults and select the target vault.  
    
3.  Under Backup Infrastructure or Backup Configuration, verify that Cross Region Restore is enabled.  
    

**Using Azure CLI:**

1\. Check 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.  In the vault’s backup settings, enable Cross Region Restore.  
    
2.  Save changes and verify configuration.  
    

**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 update by querying vault properties.  

### **Backout Plan**

**Using Azure Portal:**

1.  Disable Cross Region Restore if necessary.  
    
2.  Communicate impact to stakeholders.  
    

**Using Azure CLI:**

1\. Disable Cross Region Restore:  

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

  

**References:**

-   [Azure Backup Cross Region Restore  
    ](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-cross-region-restore)
    
-   [Disaster Recovery for Azure Backup](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-disaster-recovery)

## Related compliance guidance

- [SOC 2 compliance: a practical implementation guide for cloud-native SaaS teams](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/soc-2-trust-services-criteria): Configuration checks like this one are the technical half of a SOC 2 / ISO 27001 programme — the guide shows where they fit, what else an auditor expects, and how to evidence them.
- [ISO/IEC 27001:2022 compliance: a practical implementation guide](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27001-2022): ISO 27001 Annex A.8 (technological controls) is where cloud hardening evidence lands; the guide shows how to run the ISMS around it.