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A company is using Azure Backup for their Azure virtual machines. They have a strict compliance requirement to ensure that all backup data is stored in a geo-redundant manner, meaning it must be replicated to a secondary Azure region at a significant distance from the primary region. They also want to use the most cost-effective storage option that meets this redundancy requirement. Which storage redundancy option should they choose for their Recovery Services vault?

  1. ARead-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)
  2. BZone-redundant storage (ZRS)
  3. CGeo-redundant storage (GRS)
  4. DLocally-redundant storage (LRS)
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: C. Geo-redundant storage (GRS)

Geo-redundant storage (GRS) is the only option that replicates data to a secondary Azure region hundreds of miles away, providing the required geo-redundancy for disaster recovery and meeting the compliance need.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. RA-GRS provides read access to the secondary region, but GRS itself already provides the necessary geo-redundancy without the additional cost of read access if not needed for the backup scenario.
  • B. ZRS stores three copies across availability zones within a single region, providing resilience within a region but not geo-redundancy.
  • D. LRS stores three copies within a single data center, offering no protection against regional outages.

Azure Backup Geo-redundant Storage (GRS)

A storage redundancy option in Azure Backup where your backup data is replicated synchronously three times within a primary region, and then asynchronously replicated to a single physical location in a secondary region.

  • Provides protection against region-wide outages.
  • Ensures data durability and availability across geographically separate locations.
  • Higher cost than LRS or ZRS, but offers superior disaster recovery capabilities.

Memory trick: GRS for global reach, LRS for local peach, ZRS for zone's speech.

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