Why do zone-redundant and non-zone-redundant VPN Gateways have the same SLA?

Question

Hi all,

According to the document at https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Service-Level-Agreements-SLA-for-Online-Services?lang=1 the "Virtual Network Gateway" on page 95 has the same SLA regardless of whether it is zone-redundant (e.g. "VpnGw1AZ") or non-zone-redundant (e.g. "VpnGw1"). Only the "Basic" SKU has lower SLA compared to others.

On the pricing page (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/vpn-gateway/) these two options have a different price, and the zone-redundant version even advertises higher availability and resiliency. However, the SLA document does not reflect this in any way. Why is that?

I am aware that the non-zone-redundant versions are being phased out this year, and migrated to zone-redundant ones. That is besides the point.

Answer 1

Hello Antti Keskinen

We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

zone-redundant virtual network gateway in Azure availability zones. This brings resiliency, scalability, and higher availability to virtual network gateways. Deploying gateways in Azure availability zones physically and logically separates gateways within a region, while protecting your on-premises network connectivity to Azure from zone-level failures.

Refer: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/about-zone-redundant-vnet-gateways

1. The SLA document specifies a 99.95% uptime percentage for both zone-redundant and non-zone-redundant gateways but gateway's capability to handle traffic, rather than the redundancy or availability of the underlying infrastructure. Therefore, the SLA emphasizes the gateway's performance and uptime.
2. The SLA is a guarantee of the minimum 99.95% uptime percentage, which is the same for both zone-redundant and non-zone-redundant gateways. while zone-redundant gateways offering higher availability and resiliency at a higher cost.
3. As you noted, Microsoft is discontinuing non-zone-redundant gateways and transitioning customers to zone-redundant gateways. This change is likely due to the advantages offered by zone-redundant gateways, such as enhanced availability and resiliency.
4. The SLA document focuses on the uptime percentage and performance of the gateway, while the pricing page reflects the value provided by each type of gateway, including the additional cost of zone-redundant gateways.

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