Requirements and considerations for Azure NetApp Files replication

Before configuring cross-zone or cross-region replication, understand the requirements for each.

If you're using cross-zone-region replication, you must adhere to all the requirements.

Shared requirements for cross-zone and cross-region replication

• Azure NetApp Files replication is supported within a subscription and between subscriptions under the same tenant. To enable replication across subscriptions, you must register the feature.

• Cross-zone and cross-region replication are supported with both NFS and SMB volumes.

  Replication of SMB volumes requires an Active Directory (AD) connection in the source and destination NetApp accounts. The destination AD connection must have access to the DNS servers or AD DS Domain Controllers that are reachable from the delegated subnet in the destination zone. For more information, see Requirements for Active Directory connections.

• To mount a dual-protocol volume, you must first authorize replication from the source volume and the initial transfer happens.

• Consult resource limits for the maximum number of destination volumes you can create. You can open a support ticket to request a limit increase in the default quota of replication destination volumes (per subscription in a region).

• Cascading and fan-in topologies aren't supported. For support of fan-out deployments, see configure cross-zone-region replication.

• Data replication volumes support customer-managed keys.

• Large volumes are supported with cross-zone replication only with an hourly or daily replication schedule.

• After you establish replication, the replication process creates SnapMirror snapshots to provide references between the source volume and the destination volume. SnapMirror snapshots are cycled automatically when a new one is created for every incremental transfer. You can't delete SnapMirror snapshots until you delete the replication relationship and volume.

• There can be a delay of up to five minutes for the interface to reflect a newly added snapshot on the source volume.

• You can delete manual snapshots on the source volume of a replication relationship when the replication relationship is active or broken, and also after you've deleted the replication relationship. You can't delete manual snapshots for the destination volume until you break the replication relationship.

Cross-zone replication requirements and considerations

• The cross-zone replication feature uses the availability zone volume placement feature of Azure NetApp Files.
• To establish cross-zone replication, you must create the source volume in an availability zone.
• The destination account must be in a different zone from the source volume zone. You can also select an existing NetApp account in a different zone.
• The replication delargestination volume is read-only until you fail over to the destination zone to enable the destination volume for read and write. For more information about the failover process, see fail over to the destination volume.

  Important

  Failover is a manual process. When you need to activate the destination volume (for example, when you want to fail over to the destination region), you first need to break replication peering then mount the destination volume. For more information, see fail over to the destination volume.

• When you revert a source volume with an active volume replication relationship, only snapshots dated more recently than the SnapMirror snapshot can be used in the revert operation. For more information, see Revert a volume using snapshot revert with Azure NetApp Files.

Cross-region replication requirements and considerations

• Azure NetApp Files replication is only available in certain fixed region pairs. See Supported region pairs.

• Cross-region replication requires a NetApp account in the destination region.

• The replication destination volume is read-only until you fail over to the destination region to enable the destination volume for read and write.

  Important

  Failover is a manual process. When you need to activate the destination volume (for example, when you want to fail over to the destination region), you need to break replication peering then mount the destination volume. For more information, see fail over to the destination volume

  Important

  A volume with an active backup policy enabled can't be the destination volume in a reverse resync operation. You must suspend the backup policy on the volume prior to starting the reverse resync then resume when the reverse resync completes.

• You can revert a source or destination volume of a cross-region replication to a snapshot, provided the snapshot is newer than the most recent SnapMirror snapshot. Snapshots older than the SnapMirror snapshot can't be used for a volume revert operation. For more information, see Revert a volume using snapshot revert.

• If you are copying large data sets into a volume that has cross-region replication enabled and you have spare capacity in the capacity pool, you should set the replication interval to 10 minutes, increase the volume size to allow for the changes to be stored, and temporarily disable replication.

• If you use the cool access feature, see Manage Azure NetApp Files storage with cool access for more considerations.

• If the volume's size exceeds 95% utilization, there's a risk that replication to the destination volume can fail depending on the rate of data changes.

Supported cross-region replication pairs

Azure NetApp Files volume replication is supported between various Azure regional pairs and non-standard pairs. Azure NetApp Files volume replication is currently available between the following regions. You can replicate Azure NetApp Files volumes from Regional Pair A to Regional Pair B, and vice versa.

Azure regional pairs

Azure regional non-standard pairs

Next steps

• Create volume replication
• Create cross-zone replication relationships
• Display health status of replication relationship
• Manage disaster recovery
• Volume replication metrics
• Delete volume replications or volumes
• Troubleshoot cross-region replication
• Revert a volume using snapshot revert using Azure NetApp Files
• Test disaster recovery for Azure NetApp Files