SQL Server and Azure soft delete
Microsoft just announced the public preview for
Azure Soft Delete of Storage Blobs. From the documentation, "When turned on, soft delete enables you to save and recover your data when blobs or blob snapshots are deleted. This protection extends to blob data that is erased as the result of an overwrite. When data is deleted, it transitions to a soft deleted state instead of being permanently erased. When soft delete is on and you overwrite data, a soft deleted snapshot is generated to save the state of the overwritten data. Soft deleted objects are invisible unless explicitly listed. You can configure the amount of time soft deleted data is recoverable before it is permanently expired. Soft delete is backwards compatible; you don’t have to make any changes to your applications to take advantage of the protections this feature affords." It's important to note that this is not on by default, and you're still charged for the disk space while the file is in a soft delete status; however, if you're using Azure storage for backups, we recommend immediately changing all backup files to make use of this new functionality. This will protect you from accidental and malicious deletion of backup files. This can be enabled from the Azure portal under Blob Services or via PowerShell.
