Enhanced Disaster Recovery with Generally Available Cross-Region Service Endpoints for Azure Storage

Introduction

April 2023 marks an important milestone for Azure Storage users, as cross-region service endpoints have become generally available . These endpoints improve data redundancy and disaster recovery by allowing seamless communication between virtual networks and storage service instances across regions. This blog post will discuss the key features, benefits, and steps for implementing cross-region service endpoints in your disaster recovery plan.

Key Features and Benefits of Cross-Region Service Endpoints

1. Enhanced Data Redundancy: Cross-region service endpoints enable data replication between virtual networks and storage service instances in any region, ensuring business continuity during a disaster.

2. Secure Communication: With cross-region service endpoints, subnets no longer use public IP addresses to communicate with storage accounts, including those in another region. Instead, all traffic from subnets to storage accounts uses a private IP address as the source IP. This change eliminates the need for storage accounts that use IP network rules to permit traffic from those subnets.

3. Access to Read-Only Geo-Redundant Storage (RA-GRS) Instances: Network rules granting access from a virtual network to a storage account also grant access to any RA-GRS instance, allowing continuity during a regional failover.

4. Simplified Disaster Recovery Planning: Configuring service endpoints between virtual networks and service instances in a paired region is essential to a disaster recovery plan, ensuring uninterrupted access to critical data during regional outages.

Implementing Cross-Region Service Endpoints in Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to integrate cross-region service endpoints into your disaster recovery plan:

1. Create virtual networks (VNets) in the paired region in advance.

2. Enable service endpoints for Azure Storage within these virtual networks.

3. Configure network rules to grant access from the alternative virtual networks to your primary storage account.

4. Apply these network rules to your geo-redundant storage accounts, ensuring access to RA-GRS instances during a regional failover.

5. Update your applications to use the new cross-region service endpoints.

Conclusion

The general availability of cross-region service endpoints for Azure Storage has significantly improved data redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities. By implementing these features, businesses can maintain access to critical data during regional outages, ensuring uninterrupted operations. To learn more about Azure Storage and its latest updates, visit the official Azure Storage webpage:?https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-network-security?tabs=azure-portal#azure-storage-cross-region-service-endpoints