In Azure, there are two options for deploying virtual machines (VMs) regarding availability: "No infrastructure redundancy required" and "Azure selected zone". When I select "No infrastructure redundancy required", does that mean Azure places my VM in a random zone? And how does this differ from the newer option of choosing "Azure selected zone"?
3 Answers
Yep, exactly. When you select no redundancy, it can lead to some complications, especially if outages occur. Zonal setups inherently provide more reliability since everything is kept within the same zone.
Choosing "No infrastructure redundancy required" means your VMs are regional and not tied to a specific zone for both computing and storage. This can lead to losing your VM if either the compute zone or the storage zone goes down. In contrast, the zonal VM deploys both the compute and storage in the same zone, reducing the risk of failures.
The main difference is really about automation and avoiding capacity issues. By using "Azure selected zone", you let Azure choose a zone for your VM, which can help prevent overloading a specific zone. If everyone picks zone 1, it can get saturated quickly, so Azure tries to distribute VMs more evenly when you let it decide.
I noticed that too. At first, I thought the options were the same, but the Azure Portal doesn't really let you set policies to favor or exclude certain zones, which is kinda limiting!
Exactly! Plus, if you're working in a region with multiple zones but services are limited, picking a less popular zone like 2 or 3 can be a smart move to avoid capacity problems. It's all about that strategic placement!