back up protection

Question

back up protection

HOLMES, CARMEN D 0

I can no longer run my ADO pipeline due to backup protections, how do I disable backups permanently

Suchitra Suregaunkar 11,395 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-07T14:15:22.82+00:00
Hello @HOLMES, CARMEN D Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A platform.

To help in resolving this isuse, could you please share us the below requested details?

Which Azure resource is the ADO pipeline trying to delete or recreate? (VM, disk, resource group, vault, etc.)

Is Azure Backup currently enabled for that resource, and in which Recovery Services Vault?

Is the pipeline running in a production or non‑production (dev/test/CI) environment?

Are you trying to permanently delete the resource as part of the pipeline, or is it meant to be temporary?

Are you seeing a specific error message related to backup protection or soft delete in the pipeline logs?

Thanks,
Suchitra.

1 answer

Your answer

Suchitra Suregaunkar 11,395 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-07T14:15:22.82+00:00

Hello @HOLMES, CARMEN D Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A platform.

To help in resolving this isuse, could you please share us the below requested details?

Which Azure resource is the ADO pipeline trying to delete or recreate? (VM, disk, resource group, vault, etc.)

Is Azure Backup currently enabled for that resource, and in which Recovery Services Vault?

Is the pipeline running in a production or non‑production (dev/test/CI) environment?

Are you trying to permanently delete the resource as part of the pipeline, or is it meant to be temporary?

Are you seeing a specific error message related to backup protection or soft delete in the pipeline logs?

Thanks,
Suchitra.

Answer 1

Backup protection must be disabled on the specific Azure Backup–protected item that is blocking the Azure DevOps pipeline. The exact steps depend on how the workload is protected.

If the workload is protected via an Azure Recovery Services vault (typical for Azure VMs, SQL in Azure VM, Azure Files, etc.), use either Azure PowerShell or Azure CLI to stop protection.

Using Azure PowerShell (Recovery Services vault):

Set the vault context:

   Set-AzRecoveryServicesVaultContext -Vault $vault

Get the backup container and item for the workload (example for Azure VM):

   $cont = Get-AzRecoveryServicesBackupContainer -ContainerType AzureVM
   $item = Get-AzRecoveryServicesBackupItem -Container $cont[0] -WorkloadType AzureVM

Disable protection and delete all recovery points (permanent removal):
```
   Disable-AzRecoveryServicesBackupProtection -Item $item[0] -RemoveRecoveryPoints
```
This stops scheduled backups and deletes existing recovery points. After this, the item is no longer protected by Azure Backup.

If recovery points must be retained only for the policy duration but backups suspended (requires immutability enabled on the vault):

Disable-AzRecoveryServicesBackupProtection -Item $item[0] -RetainRecoveryPointsAsPerPolicy

This suspends backups while keeping recovery points according to the backup policy.

Using Azure CLI (Recovery Services vault): If the protected item is managed via a Recovery Services vault, disable protection with:

az backup protection disable \
  --resource-group <rg-name> \
  --vault-name <vault-name> \
  --container-name <container-name> \
  --item-name <item-name> \
  --delete-backup-data true

Key options:

--delete-backup-data true permanently deletes existing backup data in the vault.
Omit --delete-backup-data (or set to false) to stop protection but retain data.
If --container-name uses a friendly name, also specify --backup-management-type and --workload-type as required.

If the backup is for Azure Blobs (operational backup):

In the Azure portal, open the storage account.
Go to Data protection → Manage backup settings (or via Resiliency → Protected Items → filter Solution = Azure Backup and select the storage account backup instance).
Select Stop backup.
- This disconnects the storage account from the Backup vault and tools. It does not automatically disable blob point-in-time restore, versioning, or change feed; those can be turned off separately from the storage account’s Data protection blade if required.

After disabling protection and (optionally) deleting backup data for the relevant items, the backup-related policy enforcement that is blocking the Azure DevOps pipeline should no longer apply.

References:

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back up protection

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