To back up a Windows Azure or Amazon EC2 virtual machine, install a backup agent on the machine. The backup and recovery operations are the same as with a physical machine. The machine is counted as virtual when you set quotas for the number of machines.

The difference from a physical machine is that Windows Azure and Amazon EC2 virtual machines cannot be booted from bootable media. If you need to recover to a new Windows Azure or Amazon EC2 virtual machine, follow the procedure below.

To recover a machine as a Windows Azure or Amazon EC2 virtual machine

1. Create a new virtual machine from an image/template in Windows Azure or Amazon EC2. The new machine must have the same disk configuration as the machine that you want to recover.
2. Install Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux on the new machine.
3. Recover the backed-up machine. When configuring the recovery, select the new machine as the target machine.