When using cloud services for handling data, it's important to select the data replication strategy that best suits your business requirements. Azure Storage services have built-in replication. Replication copies your data, either within the same data center or to a second data center, depending on which replication option you choose.
The data in your Microsoft Azure storage account is always replicated to ensure durability and high availability. When you create a storage account, you have four replication options:
|
Replication option |
Number of copies |
Strategy |
|
Locally redundant storage (LRS) |
Maintains three copies of your data |
Data is replicated three times within a single facility in a single region |
|
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) |
Maintains three copies of your data |
Data is replicated three times across two to three facilities, either within a single region or across two regions |
|
Geo-redundant storage (GRS) |
Maintains six copies of your data |
Data is replicated three times within the primary region and is also replicated three times in a secondary region hundreds of miles away from the primary region |
|
Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) (default) |
Maintains six copies of your data |
Data is replicated to a secondary geographic location, and also provides read access to your data in the secondary location |
From the Azure portal, when creating a storage account you can select the replication option that best suits your business needs:
Data replication is an important aspect to consider on an Azure architecture. Carefully plan your data replication strategy according to the business needs.