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A company is migrating a legacy on-premises application to Azure. The application is a monolithic Java enterprise application that relies heavily on a shared file system for session state and user-uploaded content. The company wants to minimize code changes during migration and maintain high availability and disaster recovery for the file system. Which Azure storage solution best meets these requirements?
- AAzure Blob Storage
- BAzure NetApp Files
- CAzure Disk Storage
- DAzure Files with Azure File Sync
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Azure Files with Azure File Sync
Azure Files provides fully managed file shares that can be accessed via SMB or NFS, suitable for legacy applications expecting a shared file system. Azure File Sync extends this to on-premises servers, creating a hybrid solution, and offers disaster recovery capabilities.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Azure Blob Storage is object storage, not a file system, and would require significant application changes.
- B. Azure NetApp Files offers high-performance NFS/SMB shares but is typically overkill for standard shared file system needs and might be more complex to integrate for simple DR than File Sync.
- C. Azure Disk Storage provides block-level storage for individual VMs, not a shared file system accessible by multiple instances.
Azure Files with File Sync
Azure Files offers fully managed file shares in the cloud accessible via SMB/NFS. Azure File Sync synchronizes these cloud file shares with on-premises Windows Servers, enabling hybrid cloud scenarios and distributed access.
- Managed SMB/NFS file shares
- Hybrid capabilities with on-premises servers
- Supports high availability and disaster recovery
Memory trick: Files Sync makes old shared folders feel right at home in the cloud, just like before.