What feature is provided by Azure Recovery Services vault to prevent accidental deletion of backups?

The feature that prevents accidental deletion of backups in Azure Recovery Services vault is Soft Delete. Soft Delete acts as a safeguard by retaining the deleted backups for an additional period, which can be up to 14 additional days after the deletion action has occurred. This mechanism allows users to recover accidentally deleted backup data and to restore their systems to a previous state within a specified time frame after the backup was deleted.

This safeguards against human error, providing an essential fail-safe that offers an easy pathway to recover crucial data. Without this feature, if a backup is deleted, it would be irretrievable, increasing the risk of data loss.

In contrast, other options mentioned do not serve this particular purpose. Automatic backup refers to the ongoing process of creating backups without manual intervention; backup scheduling involves setting specific times for backups to occur; and data retention policy pertains to how long backup data is stored before it is deleted, but none of these provide the specific protection against accidental deletion that Soft Delete offers.