Windows 365 Frontline supports shift-based employees and contractors in critical industries such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and large customer support centers where downtime is not an option and disaster recovery is essential. Expanding Cross-region Disaster Recovery to Frontline in dedicated mode provides these organizations protection against regional outages, safeguarding productivity and service continuity.
Following the public preview announcement, we are excited to announce that Cross-region Disaster Recovery for Frontline in dedicated mode is now generally available. This Windows 365 add-on feature creates “snapshots” of Cloud PCs in customer-defined, geographically distant locations. In the event of a regional outage, these snapshots can be recovered as Cloud PCs running in the selected backup location, helping keep your users productive even if their primary region goes down.
Cross-region Disaster Recovery was first introduced for Windows 365 Enterprise, and now Windows 365 Frontline users with dedicated Cloud PCs have the same rapid failover option. This capability is especially relevant for industries and organizations that are highly regulated or have workflows requiring geographic separation between primary and backup Cloud PC locations.
Configuration and use
Unlike many traditional disaster recovery solutions, Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery was designed to be configured and used with minimal—or even no—prior disaster recovery experience. Configuration can be completed in a few minutes. In the event of an outage, recovery may be activated with just a few clicks and typically in less than five minutes.
In addition to configuration and activation, Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery has been integrated into various reports and flows. Reports alert administrators if an outage has taken place and provide full context of the configuration and status of each Cloud PC using Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery. After the outage is resolved, administrators are notified and can deactivate Cross-region Disaster Recovery in minutes.
How do I get the Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery add-on?
- Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery is provided as an add-on license to Windows 365 Enterprise and Windows 365 Frontline. It is not currently available for any other Windows 365 offering.
- Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery can be applied to the Enterprise Cloud PCs and Frontline Dedicated Cloud PCs that the user is licensed to use. Please contact sales for details.
FAQ
Q: Are the geographies and regions available for Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery limited?
A: In general no, because any geography or region where Windows 365 is available may be used as a backup region, and any of those areas can be selected by the administrator. Administrators should carefully consider the location of Cloud PC users, as well as data sovereignty, when selecting backup regions.
Q: If a user has multiple Cloud PCs, can each device have a different Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery configuration?
A: No. At this time, all Cloud PCs associated with a user will have the same Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery configuration.
Q: What is the restore time objective (RTO) and restore point objective (RPO) for Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery?
A: RPO is defined by the cadence of point-in-time restore snapshots. The RTO is targeting four hours as a performance goal for Cloud PC tenants with up to 50,000 Cloud PCs. The performance of Cross-region Disaster Recovery is anticipated to increase as actual deployment sizes increase to maintain an RTO of four hours.
Q: Can one Cross-region Disaster Recovery for Windows 365 Frontline license be used by multiple users?
A: No, The Cross-region Disaster Recovery add-on is licensed on a per-user basis and is only for the individual to whom it is assigned. Each user who intends to use Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery must have their own eligible license.
Next Steps
Learn more about:
- Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery
- Point-in-time restore for Windows 365 Enterprise
- Windows 365 and Azure network connections
- Azure regions and zones
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