Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect ExpertDesign business continuity solutionsMedium
A global manufacturing company uses Azure Virtual Machines to host its critical ERP system. The system requires near-zero downtime and minimal data loss in case of a regional outage. The company has a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 15 minutes. The solution must support automatic failover and failback between Azure regions. Which Azure service is BEST suited to meet these requirements for disaster recovery?
- AAzure Backup for Azure VMs
- BAzure Blob Storage Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS)
- CAzure Traffic Manager
- DAzure Site Recovery (ASR)
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Azure Site Recovery (ASR)
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is designed to replicate Azure VMs between regions, providing low RPO and RTO values. It supports automatic failover and orchestrated recovery plans, making it ideal for critical systems like ERP that require near-zero downtime.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Azure Backup is primarily for data protection and long-term retention, not for active-active disaster recovery with low RTO/RPO.
- B. GRS provides data redundancy for storage accounts but does not provide VM replication or automatic failover for compute resources.
- C. Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic load balancer, not a disaster recovery solution for VM replication and failover.
Azure Site Recovery (ASR)
A disaster recovery service that orchestrates replication, failover, and failback of workloads running on Azure VMs, on-premises physical servers, and VMware VMs to Azure.
- Provides low RPO and RTO for critical workloads.
- Supports replication between Azure regions or from on-premises to Azure.
- Enables orchestrated recovery plans and automatic failover.
Memory trick: ASR is like a superhero, always ready to replicate and recover your Azure world.