How to backup your VM's on Azure with Azure Backup

Currently there is no standardized way of backing up virtual machines (of any OS) without having to power-down the system during the backup. Unless that is that you are running Server 2008 R2 and above - then you can take advantage of Azure Backup.

Azure Backup works by insalling the Azure Backup Client on the VM (utilizing VSS) and backing up the data to a "Backup Vault" in the Azure cloud.

So we will firstly create a "Backup Vault" from the Azure Control Panel:
Data Services >> Recovery Services >> Backup Vault

Then from the Azure Control Panel we will go to "Recover Services" and then double click the backup vaul we created. We can then download the "Vaul Credentials" file and the relevent agent executable.

Run the excutable on the server in question and specify the vault credentials.

We can then run the "Microsoft Azure Backup" application and configure / schedule are backups!