Setting Up Your First
ASR Vault in Azure
A hands-on walkthrough to create and configure your Recovery Services Vault — the foundation of every Azure Site Recovery deployment.
PRE Prerequisites
Before you begin, make sure you have the following ready:
Navigate to portal.azure.com and sign in with your Azure account. Once logged in, you’ll land on the Home dashboard.
Use the search bar at the top and type “Recovery Services Vault” to find the service quickly.
Tip: You can also pin Recovery Services Vaults to your dashboard by clicking the star icon next to it in the search results.
Click on Recovery Services vaults from the search results. This opens the vaults list blade where you can see existing vaults and create new ones.
Click the + Create button in the top toolbar to begin creating your first vault.
The Create Recovery Services vault wizard opens. Fill in the Basics tab with your configuration details:
- Subscription — Select the Azure subscription to use
- Resource Group — Select existing or create a new one (e.g., rg-asr-prod)
- Vault Name — Choose a unique name (e.g., asr-vault-eastus)
- Region — Choose the target region where replicated data will be stored
Important: Choose the target region, not your source region. For example, if your VMs are in East US, set the vault region to West US or another region for geographic redundancy.
Click Review + create. Azure will run a quick validation check on your inputs. Once it passes, you’ll see a green “Validation passed” banner. Review the summary and click Create.
Azure will begin deploying your vault. The deployment typically completes within 1–2 minutes. You’ll see the deployment progress screen automatically.
You can also click Bell icon (notifications) in the top bar to track deployment status in real time while browsing elsewhere in the portal.
Click “Go to resource” to open your vault. You’ll see the vault’s Overview blade with key metrics and the left-side navigation panel — the command center for all ASR operations.
In the vault left menu, click Site Recovery under the Getting started section. Then click “Enable replication” to start protecting your first virtual machine.
- Select your Source Region (where your VMs currently live)
- Choose Azure Virtual Machine as the source type
- Select the VMs you want to protect
- Configure target settings — storage account, virtual network, etc.
- Review and click Enable Replication
Your vault is now fully configured. Initial replication for a typical VM can take 30–90 minutes depending on disk size and network speed. Monitor progress from the Replicated items section in the vault.
SUM Quick Reference Summary
Here’s everything you configured at a glance:
| Setting | Value Used | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Pay-As-You-Go | Any active subscription works |
| Resource Group | rg-asr-prod | Keep ASR resources grouped together |
| Vault Name | asr-vault-eastus | Must be globally unique |
| Region | East US | Use target region, not source |
| Redundancy | Geo-redundant (GRS) | Default — recommended for DR |
| Replication Type | Azure VM to Azure | VMware & Physical also supported |
| Free Trial | 31 days | Per newly protected instance |
Your Vault is Ready — What’s Next?
With your Recovery Services Vault set up, the next step is enabling replication on your VMs and testing your first failover.
Next: Enable VM Replication →