Cis Azure Storage 5.2.6

5.2.6 Ensure 'Cross Region Restore' is set to 'Enabled' on Recovery Services vaults (Automated)

Description

Cross region restore enables data restoration in a secondary Azure paired region, even when the primary region is fully operational. This allows organizations to conduct drills and validate regional resiliency, thereby ensuring preparedness for potential outages.

Rationale

Enabling cross region restore facilitates proactive resilience testing and disaster recovery planning by allowing data restoration drills in a secondary region without needing a primary region outage. This capability helps organizations validate recovery processes, identify gaps in regional failover, and ensures critical data can be accessed and restored during real disruptions.

Impact

Enabling cross region restore on a Recovery Services vault incurs additional costs, and once it is enabled, it cannot be disabled.

• Cross region restore can only be enabled on Recovery Services vaults using the GRS replication type.
• Cross region restore is available for Azure Virtual Machines, SQL/SAP HANA databases running inside Azure VMs, and Recovery Services Agent (Preview) in the vault. There is no support for classic VMs.
• Cross region restore is currently an irreversible storage property.
• When cross region restore is enabled, Azure upgrades backup storage from GRS to read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS). Pricing is updated accordingly.

Audit Procedure

Audit from Azure Portal

1. Go to Recovery Services vaults.
2. Click the name of a Recovery Services vault.
3. Under Settings, click Properties.
4. Under Backup Configuration, click Update.
5. Next to Cross Region Restore, ensure the radio button next to Enabled is selected.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 for each Recovery Services vault.

Audit from Azure CLI

Run the following command to list Recovery Services vaults:

az backup vault list

For each Recovery Services vault, run the following command:

az backup vault show --resource-group <resource-group> --name <recovery-services-vault>

Ensure that under properties > redundancySettings, crossRegionRestore is set to Enabled.

Audit from PowerShell

Run the following command to list Recovery Services vaults:

Get-AzRecoveryServicesVault

Run the following command to get the Recovery Services vault in a resource group with a given name:

$vault = Get-AzRecoveryServicesVault -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <recovery-services-vault>

Run the following command to get the cross region restore setting for the Recovery Services vault:

$vault.Properties.RedundancySettings.CrossRegionRestore

Ensure that the command returns Enabled. Repeat for each Recovery Services vault.

Expected Result

• properties.redundancySettings.crossRegionRestore is set to Enabled
• In Azure Portal, the radio button next to Enabled is selected for Cross Region Restore
• PowerShell returns Enabled for $vault.Properties.RedundancySettings.CrossRegionRestore

Remediation

Remediate from Azure Portal

1. Go to Recovery Services vaults.
2. Click the name of a Recovery Services vault.
3. Under Settings, click Properties.
4. Under Backup Configuration, click Update.
5. Next to Cross Region Restore, select the radio button next to Enabled.
6. Click Apply.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 for each Recovery Services vault requiring remediation.

Remediate from Azure CLI

For each Recovery Services vault requiring remediation, run the following command to enable cross region restore:

az backup vault update --resource-group <resource-group> --name <recovery-services-vault> --cross-region-restore-flag Enabled

Remediate from PowerShell

Run the following command to get the Recovery Services vault in a resource group with a given name:

$vault = Get-AzRecoveryServicesVault -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <recovery-services-vault>

Run the following command to enable cross region restore:

Set-AzRecoveryServicesBackupProperty -Vault $vault -EnableCrossRegionRestore

Repeat for each Recovery Services vault requiring remediation.

Default Value

Cross region restore is disabled by default on Recovery Services vaults.

References

1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-create-recovery-services-vault#set-cross-region-restore
2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/backup/vault
3. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/az.recoveryservices/get-azrecoveryservicesvault
4. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/az.recoveryservices/set-azrecoveryservicesbackupproperty

CIS Controls

Profile

Level 2 | Automated