Priority Replication for Geo Redundant Storage and Object Replication is Generally Available

Microsoft

Nov 10, 2025

We are excited to announce the General Availability of priority replication for Geo Redundant Storage (GRS) and Object Replication (OR). Priority replication enhances the replication process of GRS/GZRS and OR, ensuring guaranteed 15 minute synchronization between regions and improved replication times. Enabling priority replication will also provide an official Service Level Agreement (SLA) for all user workloads that meet the SLA criteria.

What is Geo Priority Replication?

Azure Storage has offered users the choice of geo-redundant (GRS) or geo-zone-redundant (GZRS) replication for their storage accounts for several years. As displayed in the diagram below, with GRS/GZRS, data in the storage account is asynchronously replicated from the primary region to the secondary region:

Diagram showing the asynchronously replication of storage account data from the primary to the secondary region of a GRS account.

Since the data is asynchronously replicated, in the event there is a disaster in the primary region, and an unplanned failover is initiated, there is a possibility of some data loss. The Last Sync Time (LST) property of a GRS/GZRS account is currently used to provide users with the recovery point objective (RPO) of their account. The LST of the account indicates the most recent time that data from the primary region is guaranteed to have been written to the secondary region. All data and metadata written prior to the LST is guaranteed to be available on the secondary. However, any data or metadata written after the LST may not have been replicated to the secondary and could be lost in the event of a disaster impacting the primary region or an unplanned failover.

Azure Blob Storage is now introducing Geo priority replication which will provide an SLA guarantee for the LST/RPO of Block Blob data in GRS/GZRS accounts. Geo priority replication enhances the replication process of GRS/GZRS storage accounts allowing for accelerated replication between the primary and secondary regions. The SLA guarantees the Last Sync Time of Block Blob data will be 15 minutes or less 99.0% of the billing month. With this guaranteed sync time, users can feel more confident about their data’s durability and availability, especially if there is an unexpected outage and failover in the primary region. Please refer to the official SLA Terms for a comprehensive list of eligibility requirements.

Geo Priority Replication supports the following SKUs: GRS, RA-GRS, GZRS and RA-GZRS for Block Blob data.

What is Object Replication Priority Replication?

Without priority replication, object replication asynchronously copies all operations from a source storage account to one or more destination accounts, but completion time is not guaranteed. Object replication priority replication will allow users to obtain prioritized replication from the source storage account to the destination storage account of their replication policy. When you enable priority replication, you can benefit from the associated Service Level Agreement if your source and destination account are located within the same continent. The SLA will guarantee that 99.0% of operations are replicated from the source container to the destination container of their OR policy within 15 minutes for the billing month. Please refer to the official SLA Terms for a comprehensive list of eligibility requirements.

How to monitor SLA compliance for Geo and OR Priority Replication?

Geo Priority Replication:

Geo priority replication introduces a new metric, Geo Blob Lag. This metric allows users to monitor their Blob Replication lag, the number of seconds since the last full data synchronization between the primary and secondary region. This will allow users to track the SLA compliance of their GRS/GZRS account. If an account’s Geo Blob Lag remains within 900 seconds (15 minutes), they can confirm the data replication is within SLA. To learn more about the Geo Blob Lag metric view, Geo Blob Lag Metric.

Azure Portal user experience, showing how to view Geo Blob Lag metrics.

Object Replication Priority Replication:

Replication Metrics for Object Replication is now Generally Available. These metrics empower users to troubleshoot replication delays and will help users with priority replication enabled monitor their SLA compliance. Metrics now supported are:

Pending Operations: Tracks the total number of operations pending replication from the source to the destination storage account of your OR policy
Pending Bytes: Tracks the total volume of data pending replication from the source to the destination storage account of your OR policy

These metrics are grouped into various time buckets including 0-5 minutes, 10-15 minutes and > 24 hours.

Users with OR priority replication that would like to ensure all their operations are replicating within 15 minutes; can monitor the larger time buckets (ex: 30 mins – 2hours or 8-24 hours) and ensure they are at zero or near zero.

Azure Portal experience for OR Metrics.

Users also have other options such as checking the replication status of their source blob. Users can check the replication status of a source blob to determine whether replication to the destination has been completed. Once the replication status is marked as “Completed,” the user can guarantee the blob is available in the destination account.

Azure Portal user experience for OR Replication Status.

How to get started?

Getting started is simple, to learn more about the step-by-step process to opt-in to Geo priority replication: Azure Storage Geo Priority Replication - Azure Storage | Microsoft Learn.