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I think this is incorrect in the documentation "You can also deploy Azure SQL Database into Availability Zones."
They can use local redundancy and zone redundancy. Can they use Availability Zones?
I think the documentation should say something like "You can also deploy VMs running SQL Database into Availability Zones to provide zone redundancy.", particularly because this section is about VMs. If the goal is to teach that Azure Database can use availability zones maybe it should say "You can also deploy Azure SQL Database into availability zones by setting up Azure SQL Database to use zone redundancy". And maybe provide a link to how to do it (like https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azuresqlblog/zone-redundancy-for-azure-sql-database-general-purpose-tier/3280376)
Located in Unit 4 of "Describe high availability and disaster recovery strategies" https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/describe-high-availability-disaster-recovery-strategies/4-describe-azure-high-availability-disaster-recovery-features, Unit 4 covers "Describe Azure high availability and disaster recovery features for Azure Virtual Machines".
A bit more detail about this...
I think it is one of those situations where the terminology is so similar it gets confusing.
Availability Zones are physically separate locations within an Azure region, each with its own power, cooling, and networking. They provide high availability and resilience by distributing resources across multiple zones to protect against datacenter-level failures.
Zone Redundancy is a feature that replicates data or resources across multiple availability zones within a region. This ensures that data or services remain available even if one zone experiences a failure.
Soo,
An Azure SQL Database achieves high availability through zone redundancy, which leverages availability zones.
An Azure VM with a SQL database installed can achieve high availability by using availability zones to provide zone redundancy.
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Azure SQL Database is a PaaS service - so you don't manage it on the VM level. It does support availability zones.
As you pointed out, this translates into zone redundancy - that is accomplished by implementing the service into availability zones. It's really more a matter of wording - regardless of it, the availability zone support means that the service will remain operational even in a scenario where one or two datacenters in the corresponding Azure region fails.
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hth
Marcin
It would be nice if the document maintainers would update the documentation. The ability to contribute to the learn documents is not currently available in GitHub.
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Hi Robert Virnau,
We're delighted to hear that your issue has been resolved. If you encounter any further challenges, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us, and we'll be more than happy to provide additional assistance.
Thank you.