Many organizations rely on large cloud providers like Azure, which offer flexible and resilient infrastructure that is suitable for enterprise workloads that cannot afford to experience disruptions. One major characteristic of this infrastructure is that it is organized into separate Availability Zones (AZs), so if there is an outage in one data center, other AZs will remain unaffected. To achieve high availability on Azure, you can take advantage of multiple Availability Zones. Show
In this post, we’ll review the concept of Availability Zones and how they function, covering the various options that Azure offers, including availability packages and other services and resources. We’ll also show how NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP can help you maintain high availability on Azure. In this article, you will learn: What Are Availability Zones in Azure?Azure Availability Zones are separate data center units within Microsoft Azure, each with its own power, cooling and networking. By running services on multiple availability zones, you can make your applications resilient to failure or disruption in your primary data center. An Azure Region is a complex of Azure data centers located in a specific geographic location - Azure regions are typically hundreds of miles apart. There are currently 54 Azure regions available in 140 countries. Physically, an Azure Region complex is the size of a city block and has several buildings; typically, each availability zone is in a separate building. Each Azure region has a minimum of three availability zones, allowing you to run two isolated copies of your applications. Source: MicrosoftThe Spectrum of Azure High Availability OptionsAzure high availability includes a spectrum of options, allowing progressively more confidence that an application will stay alive in the face of failure. Below are four options for ensuring a Virtual Machine (VM) is highly available. As we explain below, Azure’s high availability mechanisms, specifically Availability Zones, extend beyond VMs to additional Azure services.
Azure guarantees progressively higher uptime in its Service Level Agreements (SLA), depending on the availability option you choose:
Azure Availability Zones—Supported Services and ResourcesAzure Virtual Machines Learn how to create a VM in an Availability Zone. Azure SQL Database Learn how to setup zone-redundant configuration for SQL Database. Source: MicrosoftVM Scale Set Learn how to deploy a VMSS across availability zones. Azure Standard Load Balancer Learn how to load balance across all availability zones. Source: MicrosoftTo learn how availability zones can be used across additional Azure services and resources, including Virtual IP and custom images and snapshots, see this MSDN blog post. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP: High Availability for Storage Requiring RPO=0 and RTO<60For enterprise users of Azure, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP provides a high availability configuration that makes sure that business continuity is maintained with no data loss (RPO=0) and minimal recovery times (RTO < 60 secs). This is one critical part of a huge feature set that extends to efficient data protection with NetApp Snapshot™ copies, cost-saving storage efficiencies, full integration with Kubernetes, cloud automation capabilities, and more. Is availability zone same as data center Azure?Azure Availability Zones are separate data center units within Microsoft Azure, each with its own power, cooling and networking. By running services on multiple availability zones, you can make your applications resilient to failure or disruption in your primary data center.
Are Azure availability zones in different locations?Availability zones are available in every country where Azure operates a region. Learn more about Azure geographies.
Does every Azure region have multiple datacenters?Every Azure region has multiple datacenters.
Are Azure regions always paired with other regions?Some Azure services rely upon regional pairs by default, such as Azure redundant storage. You are not limited to using services within your regional pairs. Although an Azure service can rely upon a specific regional pair, you can host your other services in any region that satisfies your business needs.
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