Azure Latency Between Regions and How to Improve It

Azure latency between regions can be a major concern for businesses that rely on cloud services. This is because latency can significantly impact application performance and user experience.

The good news is that Azure provides a range of tools and features to help minimize latency between regions. For example, Azure's Content Delivery Network (CDN) can reduce latency by caching frequently accessed content at edge locations around the world.

A latency of up to 100ms is generally considered acceptable for most applications, but this can vary depending on the specific use case and requirements.

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Azure regions are geographic areas where Microsoft Azure has deployed its data centers. Each region is a separate location where Azure resources can be provisioned.

Azure regions are strategically located around the world to ensure global coverage and support for customers' cloud computing needs. Microsoft continues to expand its Azure footprint by adding new regions and availability zones over time.

Here are some Azure regions that currently support availability zones: AmericaEuropeMiddle EastAfricaAsia PacificBrazil SouthFrance CentralQatar CentralSouth Africa NorthAustralia EastCanada CentralItaly NorthUAE NorthCentral IndiaCentral USGermany West CentralIsrael CentralJapan EastEast USNorway EastKorea CentralEast US 2North EuropeSoutheast AsiaSouth Central USUK SouthEast AsiaUS Gov VirginiaWest EuropeChina North 3West US 2Sweden CentralWest US 3Switzerland NorthPoland Central

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Azure regions are strategically located around the world to ensure global coverage and support for customers' cloud computing needs.

Microsoft continues to expand its Azure footprint by adding new regions and availability zones over time to cater to growing customer needs and improve service coverage.

Azure regions serve multiple purposes, including geographic distribution, data residency and compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity, high availability and fault tolerance, service selection and feature availability, and scalability and load balancing.

Here are some of the key uses and advantages of Azure regions:

For most customers, the differences between Azure regions and Amazon Availability Zones (AZs) won't matter an excessive amount. Cloud providers offer good latency across their regions for many workloads.

AZs shine when you need a low-latency backup or an active-active backup. AZs within the same region have fast dedicated connections, which are ideal for these apps.

However, AZs have some downsides. If an AZ has an outage, many customers have designed their workloads to failover to a different AZ in the same region.

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This can create a crowded AZ, which could impact performance. Cloud vendors are continually adding new regions to help alleviate this issue.

Just this month, Amazon launched a new region in Ohio to offload capacity from its Virginia region and satisfy increased demand for its services. Microsoft brought on two new government regions this month too.

Curious to learn more? Check out: Azure Central Region Outage

Azure Region Configuration plays a crucial role in determining Azure latency between regions. There are currently 60 Azure regions worldwide, each with its own unique configuration.

Azure regions are organized into three tiers: General Purpose, High Performance, and Memory Optimized. The General Purpose tier is the most widely used, offering a balanced combination of compute, storage, and networking capabilities.

Each region has its own set of available virtual machine sizes, with some regions offering more sizes than others. For example, the West US 2 region offers 13 different virtual machine sizes, while the East US 2 region only offers 9.

Related reading: Azure Openai Regions

To create a watcher, you'll need to create a resource group in an Azure region. In this example, the resource group is created in the East US region.

You can create a resource group in any Azure region. Make sure to choose a region that suits your needs.

If you already have a watcher in at least one Azure region, you can skip this task. A network watcher must be created in at least one Azure region.

You can create a network watcher in the East US Azure region, just like in the example.

Broaden your view: Azure Region Codes

The Batch Transcription Service is a powerful tool for processing large amounts of audio and video files. It's designed to work seamlessly with Azure, and can be configured to run in various network topologies.

Network topologies for Azure batch transcription Speech Service are discussed in detail, allowing you to choose the best setup for your specific needs. This includes considerations for network latency and bandwidth.

If this caught your attention, see: Azure Service Endpoints

To ensure optimal performance, it's essential to choose the right network topology for your Batch Transcription Service. This will depend on the size and complexity of your project, as well as your available network resources.

Azure supports multiple network topologies, including hub-and-spoke and full-mesh configurations. These topologies can be used to optimize network traffic and reduce latency.

By carefully selecting the right network topology, you can ensure that your Batch Transcription Service runs smoothly and efficiently. This will help you to meet your project deadlines and achieve the best possible results.

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Accelerated Networking is a game-changer for reducing latency in Azure. It eliminates unnecessary network complexity by allowing traffic to flow directly from the virtual machine's network interface, bypassing the host and virtual switch.

This approach reduces the number of jumps for traffic to reach its destination, resulting in reduced latency and jitter. Accelerated Networking is particularly useful in disaster recovery scenarios where the central host is no longer an option, and the virtual switches must assume its role.

Recommended read: Azure Networking Choices

Accelerated Networking is also known as Single-Root Input-Output Virtualization (SR-IOV). It's a straightforward method that can make a significant impact on network performance.

Here are some key benefits of Accelerated Networking:

By implementing Accelerated Networking, you can create a more efficient and reliable network environment that's better equipped to handle demanding workloads.

You can compare relative network latencies to a single Azure region from a specific location using a command that returns the average relative Internet service provider latencies. This is useful for evaluating service providers or troubleshooting issues like "the site was slow" from a specific location to the Azure region where a service is deployed.

The command requires specifying a date within the past 30 days for -StartTime and -EndTime, and specifying a valid country, state, and city. If you specify values for -Country and -State, they must be valid and case-sensitive.

Data is available for a limited number of countries, regions, states, and cities, so be sure to check the available options before running the command. The returned output will show the relative latency across regions and providers, with a score of 1 being the worst (highest) latency and 100 being the lowest latency.

Take a look at this: Azure Latency Test

If you want to compare relative network latencies across Azure regions from a specific location, you can use the Network Watcher tool. To do this, you'll need to specify the location and the start and end times for which you want to retrieve data.

You must specify a date within the past 30 days for the start and end times, as data older than 30 days is not available. This is because the tool only stores data for a limited time period.

You can also specify the Internet service provider, which is required if you don't specify a location or specify multiple locations. For example, if you want to evaluate what Azure region to deploy a service in for Comcast users in Washington state, you'll need to specify Comcast as the Internet service provider.

The output will show the relative latencies to all Azure regions from the specified location, with a score of 1 being the worst (highest) latency and 100 being the lowest latency. The relative latencies are averaged for the day.

A larger date range will give you a more accurate average latency over time, but keep in mind that the tool only stores data for a limited time period.

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When choosing an Azure region, one key consideration is latency. Proximity Placement Groups can greatly reduce latency, making them a recommended choice whenever possible.

One of the most interesting findings from our research is that traffic between zones is consistently below 2ms. This is a significant advantage for applications that require low-latency communication across different zones.

Peerings, on the other hand, have a minimal impact on latency. This means you can use peerings without worrying about significant performance degradation.

The hub-and-spoke architecture can introduce latency, but there are ways to mitigate this. Using a VPN Gateway or an Azure Firewall as a virtual appliance can keep latency within the 2ms threshold.