How to backup and restore tables in Azure storage

There is currently no built in solution for backing up tables in Azure Storage, but we can easily do it with the help of a tool called AzCopy which is provided by Microsoft. Below is a PowerShell script I built to simplify the process of backing up and restoring. It’s a two-step rocket: First it enumerates all your tables and saves a CSV-file with their names. Then it uses this file to perform the actual backup (and restore if needed). This way you can easily edit the CSV-file to “configure” what to backup.

This script is also available at my GitHub repo.

<#
    Simple script for backing up and restoring Azure Storage tables. Data 
    is save on your local disk.

    Prerequisites
        Download and install AzCopy: http://aka.ms/downloadazcopy
        
        More info about AzCopy:
        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/storage-use-azcopy

    Backing up tables
        1. Edit the config section
        2. Run Init-StorageAccountTablesBackup to create tables.csv
        3. Open tables.csv. Verify content and remove any table you don't want to backup.
        4. Run Backup-StorageAccountTables

    Restore tables
        1. First run Remove-StorageAccountTables
        2. Wait a while to let Azure remove your tables
        3. Run Restore-StorageAccountTables
#>


### Config ###

$backupDir = "c:\backup"
$AzCopyFolder = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\AzCopy\"

$storageAccountName = "mystorageaccount"
$storageAccountKey = "rtyuiertyuqweasdfghjqwekliopasdfopzxcvbnmqiopasdfopwghjklzxcvbnm=="


### Functions ###

function Init-StorageAccountTablesBackup {
    if(!(Test-Path $backupDir)) {
        Write-Host ("Creating folder $backupDir") -ForegroundColor Yellow
        New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $backupDir
    }
    $ctx = New-AzureStorageContext $storageAccountName -StorageAccountKey $storageAccountKey
    $tables = Get-AzureStorageTable -Context $ctx
    $tables | Sort-Object -Property "CloudTable" | Select-Object CloudTable,Uri | Export-Csv "$backupDir\tables.csv" -Encoding UTF8
}

function Remove-StorageAccountTables {
    $tables = import-csv "$backupDir\tables.csv" -Encoding UTF8
    $ctx = New-AzureStorageContext $storageAccountName -StorageAccountKey $storageAccountKey
    foreach($t in $tables) {
        $tableName = $t.CloudTable
        Write-Host ("Removing table $tableName") -ForegroundColor Yellow
        Remove-AzureStorageTable –Name $tableName –Context $ctx
    }
}

function Backup-StorageAccountTables {
    $tables = import-csv "$backupDir\tables.csv" -Encoding UTF8
    cd $AzCopyFolder
    foreach($t in $tables) {
        $tableUrl = $t.Uri
        $tableName = $t.CloudTable
        Write-Host ("`nBacking up table $tableName") -ForegroundColor Yellow
        .\AzCopy.exe /Source:"$tableUrl" /Dest:"$backupDir" /SourceKey:"$storageAccountKey" /Manifest:"$tableName.manifest"
    }
}

function Restore-StorageAccountTables {
    $tables = import-csv "$backupDir\tables.csv" -Encoding UTF8
    cd $AzCopyFolder
    foreach($t in $tables) {
        $tableUrl = $t.Uri
        $tableName = $t.CloudTable
        Write-Host ("`nRestoring table $tableName") -ForegroundColor Yellow
        .\AzCopy.exe /Source:"$backupDir" /Dest:"$tableUrl" /DestKey:"$storageAccountKey" /Manifest:"$tableName.manifest" /EntityOperation:InsertOrReplace
    }
}