No matter where you store your backups, you can run a restore to a cloud VM. In terms of speed, you need to test it as it very much depends on your bandwidth capacity.

We spun up a Ramnode instance and did a VHDx restore from Google Nearline. We achieved an average download speed roughly equivalent to a local USB drive - around 20MB/sec, 1.2 GB/minute. At that rate, a 100GB restore would take about 1.5 hours.
Your mileage may vary.

This is helpful information! Thanks.

Are there any gotchas or best practices?

Is the documentation sufficient and up to date:
Restore To EC2 - https://mspbackups.com/AP/Help/restore/restore-ec2
Restore To Azure VM - https://mspbackups.com/AP/Help/restore/restore-azurevm

Thanks for the answers. I gather a restore to a VM in the cloud can potentially take a significant amount of time. If a case arises where there is a need to get a computer or server back up and running ASAP, are there other methods that would probably be quicker?

HyperV replication is what we use for clients that need fast recovery from major, non-Disaster events.
We keep the old server when upgrading and make it the replica.
Other MSP’s rely on Datto-type devices to spin up virtual machines on prem.
Neither of these approaches help in a true Disaster where the client equipment and/or site is unusable for whatever reason.
For that we rely on a spare server in our office that can quickly download the client’s image/vhdx file(s), or we spin-up a Ramnode hosted instance and do the recovery from there. We tell clients that in a true disaster scenario, we will aim to have core systems up and running in less than 24 hours from the time a disaster is declared, with data from the previous backup.

Steve, thanks so much for that information.

What features of MSP360 do you use to allow you to keep the replica server bootable from a recent backup in a minimum amount of time?

What are the advantages on Ramnode compared to Azure and AWS?

In a disaster recovery via Ramnode, what step(s) takes up the majority of the 24 hour timeframe?

Thanks again for your willingness to share.

I found the following video on how to restore a server to an Azure VM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqs_zbZ-dVk

This video appears to be 6 years old, however. Is the information provided in the video still relevant, or is there a newer video on this subject that's more up-to-date.

HYPERV replication does not rely on backups. It is a windows feature that mirrors the state of the primary server and can be configured to keep multiple checkpoints to restart from on the HYPERV replication server. It is a manual failover - but can be completed in minutes.
We use ramnode to host several clients' servers, as well as to spin up an instance in a disaster scenario where using our local spare server is not a viable option.
Ramnode is significantly cheaper than Azure or AWS and has better, more accessible, technical support. We have used all three and prefer Ramnode overall.
We only use he HYPERV replication feature for our largest, most critical customers, where downtime due to hardware or OS failures cannot exceed an hour.

Steve, thanks again for the information. Those sounds like good options.