Can I get access to GRS/ZRS replicated data in SQL Databases in Azure?

Yahor Navumenka 20 Reputation points
2023-07-19T11:25:41.7466667+00:00

I've created an SQL database using Geo-redundant backup storage.

Maybe is there a way to work with this backup manually or at least test it works or not?

I'm interested in:

  1. Can I get last sync date/time?
  2. Can I get direct access to a backup database data and/or backup file?
  3. Can I test if secondary storage works or not if main location storage fails?
  4. Can I test if I get proper disaster recovery on a main location if it fails?
  5. Can I do the same using Availability zones?

PS I already know about possibility to create replication rules manually using Replicas

Azure SQL Database
0 comments No comments
{count} votes

Accepted answer
  1. GeethaThatipatri-MSFT 29,517 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2023-07-20T13:33:16.06+00:00

    Hi,@Yahor Navumenka Welcome to Microsoft Q&A thanks for posting your question

    Can you please share what is the use case? and why do you want to handle a backup manually?

    Here are the responses for your question:

    User's image

    There is no direct way to get the last sync date/time. But when you list the geo-replicated backups you get the timestamp next to the backup. That indicates the point-in-time to which the backup can restore the DB, but not the replicated time.

    User's image

    No, you cannot get direct access to backup files in Azure SQL DB. They are completely service managed. But I have a question: What do you intend to do with direct access to backups?

    User's image

    When you say secondary storage, I am assuming you mean backup in the paired region. yes it works. Doing simple geo-restore would be a simple test scenario

    User's image

    Same answer as above.

    User's image

    If you want backups to be replicated to Availability zones then you need to select ZRS or GZRS. but the failover mechanism across availability zones is more seamless (provided you select Multi-Az for compute and backup storage) i.e., when you perform restore if the primary Az is down, restore will happen automatically from other zones.    

    I hope this information is helpful

    Regards

    Geetha


0 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful

Your answer

Answers can be marked as Accepted Answers by the question author, which helps users to know the answer solved the author's problem.