Azure creates geo-redundant backups for each service tier automatically. These backups are then copied to read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS). Azure SQL Database creates a full database backup every week, and a differential backup every hour. A differential backup creates a backup from the data that has changed since the last full backup. Azure SQL Database also creates a transaction log backup every 5 to 10 minutes.
The retention period of these backups varies for each service tier:
- Basic: Has a retention of 7 days
- Standard: Has a retention of 35 days
- Premium: Has a retention of 35 days
These retention periods can be extended by creating a long-term backup retention policy. By using the LTR policy, the retention ...
