Simplified & lower pricing for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance backup storage

Today as you deploy your Azure SQL database or Azure SQL managed instance, one of the important decisions to be made is the choice for your backup storage redundancy (BSR).  

I say it's important because the availability of your database depends on the availability of your backups. Here’s why. Consider the scenario where your DB has high availability configured via zone redundancy. And, let's say, your backups are configured non-zone redundant. In the event of a failure in the zone, your database fails over to another zone within the region, however your backups won't, because of their storage setting. Now, in the new zone, the backup service attempts to backup your database but cannot reach the backups in the zone where the failure happened causing the logs to become full and eventually impacting the availability of the database itself.  

As you create the Azure SQL database, the choices for backup storage redundancy are: 

• Locally Redundant Storage (LRS)
• Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS)
• Geo Redundant Storage (GRS) and
• Geo Zone Redundant Storage (GZRS) 

Each of these storage types provides different levels of durability, resiliency and availability for your databases and database backups. Not surprisingly, each storage type also has different levels of pricing, and the price increases significantly as the protection level increases with GZRS storage type almost 4-5x LRS.  

Choosing between resilience and cost optimization is an extremely difficult choice that the DB owner must make.  

We are thrilled to announce that, starting from 11/01/2024, the backup storage pricing is now streamlined and simplified across Azure SQL database and Azure SQL Managed Instance. Bonus – we even reduced the prices 😊 

The price changes apply to the Backup Storage Redundancy configuration for both Point-in-time and Long-Term Retention backups, across the following tiers of Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance: 

As we made the changes, following were the principles we adhered to: 

1. No price increase
2. BSR pricing for ZRS is reduced to match the BSR pricing for LRS 
3. BSR pricing for GZRS is reduced to match the BSR pricing of GRS 
4. BSR pricing for GRS/GZRS will be 2x that of LRS/ZRS 

As an example, lets take East US as the region and look at the pricing for backup storage redundancy for Point in Time storage before and after the changes: 

For General Purpose/Business Critical service tiers the pricing would now be: 

For Hyperscale service tier, the new pricing would now be: 

Similarly, Backup storage redundancy prices for Long Term Retention backups in East US would be as follows: 

As a customer, the decision now becomes much easier for you.

If you need regional resiliency:

• choose Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS)

If you need regional and/or geo resiliency:

• choose Geo Zone Redundant Storage (GZRS).

If the Azure region does not support Availability Zones, then choose Local Redundant Storage for regional resiliency, and Geo Redundant Storage for geo resiliency respectively. 

Please Note: The Azure pricing page and Azure pricing calculator will be updated with these new prices soon. The actual pricing meters have already been updated. 

Additionally, the LTR pricing change for Hyperscale will be in effect from January 1, 2025.