New Azure Storage Cool Tier Generally Available<\/b><\/p>\n
Azure storage was cheap already, but it just got cheaper. Now we have a lower tier for blob storage, that can be used for services like backup, disaster recovery, or data archival. As a result, the storage pricing page<\/a> has been updated to reflect the new options. Here is the pricing for block blobs (backup) in North Europe:<\/p>\n LRS, what we typically see being used for on-prem backup, costs (in North Europe):<\/p>\n Seriously, that is cheap. Microsoft has detailed the transaction pricing too (this really only affects huge<\/em><\/u><\/strong> deployments):<\/p>\n As you can infer from the above, cool storage really is for infrequently accessed data. Hot storage is where frequently accessed data should reside.<\/p>\n The SLA on cold storage is lower – at 99% which is still pretty damned good, especially for the price. You can bump that up with the RA-GRS redundancy option<\/a>, where Microsoft provides a higher read SLA of\u00a0 99.9% for the Cool access tier.<\/p>\n Note that I don\u2019t yet see a way to use cool storage with Azure Backup, in either the old or the new portals. But a number of 3rd party backup tools can use it. Note that you have to create a new storage account type called BlobStorage in ARM to gain access to hot\/cold, and you can convert from cold to hot, and vice versa (the above transaction costs will be charged for conversions starting on June 1st).<\/p>\n The DR solution, ASR, now has support in the new Azure Portal. This adds support for ARM (CSP). Improvements include:<\/p>\n Enhanced VMware to Azure:<\/p>\n I still don’t see ASR as being ready in ARM. Yes, I can replicate and failover VMs, but I see Azure AD and RemoteApp as essential pieces to the solution.<\/em> What good are machines in the cloud if I cannot access them? Yes, I can use point-site VPN (don’t assume you’ll have site-site VPN option from your alternative office, e.g. a hotel meeting room) and the “fun” that will cause, but how will my legacy applications perform … after I’ve spent hours installing them on new laptops I just bought? Unfortunately, Service Manager (Azure V1) continues to be my recommendation for DR solutions<\/em> in Azure, and the rumblings tell me that it’ll stay that way for another 6 or so months \ud83d\ude41 It’s a pity because the new ASR UI is pretty nice.<\/p>\n Microsoft sent out an announcement about feature changes\/additions in Azure last night. Some news there that was much quicker than I expected \u2026 Azure Container Service Generally Available Azure Container Service helps customers manage container-based applications in production, at scale. Azure Container Service is fully integrated with the Azure portal, Azure Resource Manager, and our … Continue reading “New Features in Azure – 29 April 2016”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[170,61,99],"class_list":["post-19500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azure","tag-azure","tag-dr","tag-storage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/image_thumb2.png\" "\\"image\\"")
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<\/a><\/p>\nAzure Site Recovery Portal General Availability<\/h2>\n
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