Does Azure charge you per region when performing periodical Cosmos backups?
Based on their calculator it seems that's what they do. I have a single write region and a single read region and it looks like I will be charged for both regions when I enable backups.
Also, how does the "backup restore redundancy" (GRS, ZRS, and LRS) work into pricing for backups? It's an option in the Azure Portal but their calculator does not account for it.
Yes, you are right. You will be charged for both regions.
However, 2 periodic backups per region are free. You are charged only if you opt for more than 2 backups.
By default, Azure Cosmos DB stores periodic mode backup data in geo-redundant storage (GRS). Updating backup storage redundancy to ZRS or LRS will not have any impact on backup storage pricing.
Related
For Azure storage accounts the SLA for write requests is 99.9% regardless if I'm using LRS, ZRS, GRS or RA-GRS. Is there a way to increase the SLA for write requests on the storage account?
E.g is there a good way to fail over to another storage account in another region?
The accounts don't have to contain the same data. I just want to always be able to store the blobs.
Is there a good way to fail over to another storage account in another region?
Of course, Azure storage itself provides this feature, you can refer to the document Initiate a storage account failover.
Before you can perform an account failover on your storage account, make sure that your storage account is configured for geo-replication. Your storage account can use any of the following redundancy options:
Geo-redundant storage (GRS) or read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)
Geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS) or read-access geo-zone-redundant storage (RA-GZRS)
You will see an interface like this:
Is there a way to increase the SLA for write requests on the storage account?
My suggestion is to increase the number of retries for write requests, maybe the example here can help you, you can use BlobClientOptions.
There are two back up configuration options for Azure Recovery Service Vault - LRS vs GRS
This is a question regarding Azure Recovery Service Vault.
How does geo-redundant enabled recovery service vault being handled when its residing region failed ?
If the cross region restore is not being enabled for a recovery service, which by default it isn't, what will happen to my recovery service vault ?
I am trying to find out the difference between enabling cross region restore and not to.
There is not much info that i can find through the internet and official documents.
Configure cross region restore for recovery service vault
There is one more helpful link GRS vs LRS. However, as of time writing, seems like cross region restore has not been enabled, and right now, it is on enabled in west central us. However, we can enable GRS for all(most) regions.
The Recovery Services vault is an entity that stores the backups and recovery points created over time. Azure Backup automatically handles storage for the vault. The LRS and GRS mean to the Storage Replication type. Read the storage replication strategy.
Locally redundant storage (LRS) replicates your data three times
within a single data center.
GRS replicates your data to another data
center in a secondary region, but that data is available to be read
only if Microsoft initiates a failover from the primary to secondary
region.
Storage Replication type by default is set to Geo-redundant. The CRR feature is based on A vault created with GRS redundancy. So you can enable GRS for all(most) regions but CRR is currently available in the WCUS region. Read here.
As the GRS storage replication, If the primary region that geo-redundant enabled recovery service vault residing on failed, Microsoft initiates a failover from the primary to a secondary region. The secondary region serves as a redundant source for your data.
With CRR enabled service, The restore operation on the secondary region can be performed by Backup Admins and App admins. Which gives you full control to restore data to a secondary region. The secondary region is an Azure paired region.
Without CRR enabled service, you probably could not restore all the Azure VMs for the selected recovery point if the backup is done in the secondary region. You can create a new VM from a restore point, restores a VM disk, replace a disk on the existing VM. See the restore options.
Hope this could help you.
THis is another answer from Cross Region Restore - check comments for reference purpose.
The storage redundancy configuration for the Recovery Services Vault (RSV), is specific to Azure Backup data, not Azure Site Recovery (ASR).
This means, in the event of an Azure region failure, if the RSV is configured with Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS), then (with the help of the Azure support team), the RSV can be made available in the paired Azure region, and the data would be accessible.
The cross-region restore (CRR) option, is something that’s specific to Azure Backup, not ASR. You can have an RSV configured with GRS storage, but not have CRR enabled. The CRR feature allows you to take a backup of a VM in Region1, and perform a VM restore in Region2. The storage redundancy is for geo-failover of the RSV itself in the event of a full Azure region failure.
Azure Cosmos DB takes snapshots of your data every four hours. At any given time, only the last two snapshots are retained. However, if the container or database is deleted, Azure Cosmos DB retains the existing snapshots of a given container or database for 30 days.
How can I see those snapshots?
You will not be able to see them.
CosmosDB uses Azure Blob storage in the same region as your database's write region for backups. If you have multiple write regions, CosmosDB picks one of them to store your backups. But wait, Microsoft does not stop there! Each snapshot of the backups in Azure Blob storage gets replicated again to another region for disaster recovery.
All these operations do not cost you any extra charge or RU. Also backups do not affect the performance of your databases. If you need to restore data for any reason, you need to contact Azure support within 8 hours!
As we are stopping azure service, we have stopped and deleted the VM's and attached disks last month, which now displays no instances in cloud services, which in turn have deleted the blobs inside the storage. Do we get billed for subscription this month.Any idea?
For Azure storage account, your total cost depends on how much you store, the volume and type of storage transactions and outbound data transfers, and which data redundancy option you choose.
If you delete all your blobs in your storage account, you don't pay for storage account.
More information about Azure Storage Pricing please refer to this link.
In Azure, when creating a VM, you can choose to "Use an automatically generated storage account".
Which, generates a geo-replicated storage account.
Can I create a zone replicated storage account and use that? I have tried, but it does not show up in the list.
What are the prerequisites for a storage account to be usable for the VM's?
Is this documented somewhere?
I think the only restriction is that you can't choose a ZRS account to be used by VMs because VMs are essentially stored as Page blobs in blob storage and ZRS account only support block blobs. From the storage team blog here - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2014/08/01/introducing-zone-redundant-storage.aspx:
As you can see, these options provide a continuum of durability and
availability options. ZRS fits between LRS and GRS in terms of
durability and price. ZRS stores 3 replicas of your data across 2 to 3
facilities. It is designed to keep all 3 replicas within in a single
region, but may span across two regions. ZRS currently only supports
block blobs. ZRS allows customers to store blob at a higher durability
than a single facility can provide with LRS. ZRS accounts do not have
metrics or logging capability enabled at this time.