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A financial services company is migrating a high-performance, latency-sensitive trading application to Azure. The application relies on shared file storage with extremely low latency and high IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) requirements, typically found in on-premises Fibre Channel SANs. Which Azure storage solution would best meet these performance demands?
- AAzure Files standard tier
- BAzure NetApp Files
- CAzure Managed Disks (Premium SSD)
- DAzure Blob Storage
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Azure NetApp Files
Azure NetApp Files is a high-performance, enterprise-grade file storage service designed for demanding workloads that require extreme performance, low latency, and advanced data management capabilities, similar to on-premises Fibre Channel SANs. It provides NFS and SMB access with guaranteed performance levels.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Azure Files standard tier offers general-purpose file sharing but does not meet the extreme low latency and high IOPS requirements of a high-performance trading application.
- C. Azure Managed Disks are block storage for individual VMs, not shared file storage, and while Premium SSDs offer good performance, they don't provide the shared, ultra-low latency file system access needed.
- D. Azure Blob Storage is object storage, suitable for unstructured data, but not designed for file system access or the low latency/high IOPS required by this application.
Azure NetApp Files
A high-performance, enterprise-grade, metered file storage service for demanding workloads, providing NFS and SMB shares with ultra-low latency.
- Delivers extreme performance and low latency for file-based workloads.
- Supports NFSv3, NFSv4.1, and SMB3 protocols.
- Ideal for SAP HANA, HPC, and high-performance databases.
Memory trick: NetApp Files: 'Net' result is top 'App' performance.