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A company wants to implement Azure Site Recovery for their on-premises physical servers to Azure. They need to ensure that the initial replication data is transferred efficiently without consuming excessive internet bandwidth. Which method is most suitable for transferring large amounts of initial replication data for physical servers?
- AOffline initial replication using Azure Data Box
- BOnline replication over VPN Gateway
- CIncremental replication over public internet
- DStreaming replication over ExpressRoute
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Offline initial replication using Azure Data Box
For large initial replication of on-premises physical servers to Azure with Azure Site Recovery, especially when internet bandwidth is limited, using Azure Data Box for offline initial replication is the most efficient method. This prevents bandwidth saturation during the crucial first replication.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Online replication over VPN Gateway can be slow and consume significant bandwidth for large initial datasets.
- C. Incremental replication only happens after the initial replication; it's not for the initial large data transfer and public internet can be slow.
- D. Streaming replication over ExpressRoute is for continuous replication, but ExpressRoute itself might be costly and still requires significant bandwidth for the initial sync.
ASR Offline Initial Replication
Azure Site Recovery supports offline initial replication using Azure Data Box for large datasets, minimizing network bandwidth consumption during the initial sync.
- Reduces network impact for initial data transfer.
- Suitable for large on-premises workloads (VMware, Hyper-V, physical servers).
- Data Box is shipped to Azure datacenter for upload.
Memory trick: Big data needs a box, not just network locks.