Azure Extended Zones: Optimizing Performance, Compliance, and Accessibility

Azure Extended Zones are designed to bring the power of Azure closer to end users in specific metropolitan areas or jurisdictions, making them ideal for organizations that require low latency and strict data residency controls. This innovative solution supports a wide range of use cases, including real-time media editing, financial services, healthcare, and any industry where data localization and fast response times are critical.

Key Benefits and Features:

1. Low latency and high performance:

• Reduced latency: Azure Extended Zones enables applications that require fast response times to operate with minimal latency. This is especially useful for areas such as media where real-time processing is critical. Extended Zones improves performance and user experience by placing resources closer to end users, ensuring faster data access and lower latency.
• Improved user experience: Applications that require fast response times, such as gaming or real-time analytics, can significantly reduce data transfer latency by using Azure Extended Zones.

• Control geographic data: These zones allow organizations to keep their data within specific geographic boundaries, ensuring compliance with local privacy laws, regulatory requirements, and compliance standards. This is especially important for industries such as finance, healthcare, and government where data sovereignty is a major concern.
• Compliance: Azure Extended Zones helps organizations meet stringent data residency requirements mandated by Europe’s GDPR and other regional data protection laws by ensuring that data remains within a defined region.

• Supported Azure services: Azure Extended Zones provide a wide range of Azure services, including:
  

  Service Category	Available Services
  Calculate	Azure Virtual Machines (General Purpose: A, B, D, E, F series and GPU NVadsA10 v5 series)
  	Virtual machine scale set
  	Azure Kubernetes Service
  Networking	Azure Private Link
  	Standard public IP
  	Virtual Network
  	Virtual Network Peering
  	Express Route
  	Azure Standard Load Balancer
  	DDoS (Standard Protection)
  save	Azure Managed Disks
  	Azure Premium Page Blob
  	Azure Premium Block Blob
  	Azure Premium Files
  	Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
  	Hierarchical namespace
  	Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Flat Namespace
  	Change feed
  	Blob function
  	– SFTP
  	– Network file system
  BCDL	Azure Site Recovery
  	Azure Backup

  • These services can be deployed and managed across extended boundaries, giving enterprises the flexibility to run complex workloads closer to their customers.

Request access to Azure extended areas

• To register for an Azure extension zone, follow these steps:

• Select your subscription: Select the Azure subscription you want to register for the extension area.
• List of available areas: Use the Get-AzEdgeZonesExtendedZone cmdlet in Azure PowerShell to list all available extended zones.
• Zone registration: Register to a specific region (e.g. Los Angeles) using Register-AzEdgeZonesExtendedZone -Name ‘zonename’.
• Check your registration status: Check the registration status with Get-AzEdgeZonesExtendedZone -Name ‘zonename’. The zone is available for use when the status is “Registered”.

• Workload Distribution: Once access is granted, users can deploy available Azure services within an Azure extension zone using the Azure portal or CLI.

Use Cases and Industry Applications:

• Media & Entertainment: Azure Extended Zones support low-latency streaming and real-time media processing, making them ideal for content creation and distribution.
• Financial Services: Strict data residency and low-latency requirements allow financial institutions to benefit by keeping their data within local jurisdictions while ensuring fast transaction processing.
• Healthcare: The expanded scope gives healthcare organizations the ability to store and process patient data locally, enabling them to comply with health data regulations and improve response times for critical applications.

FAQs and General Questions:

• How do Azure Extended Zones differ from existing Azure regions? Azure Extended Zones are designed to serve specific metropolitan areas or jurisdictions, with a focus on low latency and data residency. Unlike traditional Azure regions, which cover a larger geographic area, Extended Zones provide a more localized solution.
• Can I use existing Azure services within the extended area? Yes, many Azure services, including virtual machines, Kubernetes, storage, and networking, are available in Extended Zones, allowing for seamless integration with your existing Azure infrastructure.
• What are the limitations of Azure Extended Zones? Extended Zones offer many benefits, but they are currently only available in preview and may have limited service availability in some regions. Additionally, not all Azure services are supported in Extended Zones, so it is important to verify compatibility based on your specific requirements.
• How do I request access to Azure Extended Zones? You can request access by submitting a request form in the Azure Portal. This process involves providing details about your intended use case and the specific region in which you require the service. Microsoft will review your request and grant access based on availability and alignment with service objectives.

For more information and to request access, please visit: Azure Extension Areas Overview, Frequently Asked Questionsand Request Access page.

Note: Azure Extended Zones is currently in preview. For legal terms that apply to Azure features in beta or preview, see: Additional Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Preview.