Increase Azure SQL Managed Instance backup retention beyond 7 days

Question

Azure SQL Managed Instance provides a default backup retention of 7 days and this cannot be changed as per MS. Access to the Automated backups are not provided as well which is quite surprising. My client requires the backups to be restored for their analysis.

Requirement is to have last 14 days daily back and 1st day of every month backup to be saved.

• How can the above requirement is meet? or How do we create automated backups and auto archiving from our end in MI with TDE on?
• Provide the location where these automated backups are stored.

Answer 1

Managed Instance now supports up to 35 days of backup retention (instead of 7) see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-managed-instance-index#new-and-preview-features

Answer 2

MI Supports 7-35 days backups retention depends on pricing tier. MI also supports long-term retention of full backups for up to 10 years in Azure blob storage. You can't get access to Azure automated backups but you can schedule copy_only backups on URL. For TDE and other information you can check following link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-automated-backups

Answer 3

Updated information (May 2020):

• Managed Instance now supports 1-35 day PITR backup retention for active databases, and 0-35 days for deleted databases (0 would mean no backup is kept). More info here: https://aka.ms/mi-backup-tuning.
• LTR support for Managed Instance is also available with up to 10 years of retention. More info here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-long-term-retention#managed-instance-support