Are there any valid reasons for not placing virtual machines (VMs) in availability zones within Azure, especially when the region supports them? I understand that using availability zones is beneficial for accessing Premium SSD v2 disks, particularly for SQL servers. I'm curious about any other pros or cons associated with this decision. Historically, I've always placed my VMs in availability zones, but I'm exploring situations where it might make sense to avoid them.
4 Answers
You might want to think about it the other way around: is there really a need to use an availability zone? For individual instances without load balancing, the added complexity may not be worth it. For example, in Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) setups, personal desktops usually don’t require availability zones, while pooled hosts do benefit from them.
If you only have a single VM without a load balancer, you might skip availability zones. If you’re not concerned about high availability or failover, it’s simpler to manage without them.
In certain scenarios, it can be beneficial to avoid availability zones. For example, if a region is experiencing capacity issues, zoneless deployments can help avoid those headaches. Also, deploying non-production resources where uptime isn't critical might be easier without zone redundancy.
Sometimes proximity is key. If you have services that need quick communication, like a front end and a backend, keeping them close together in a proximity placement group might be better than forcing them into availability zones.
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