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When running production workloads on Azure VMs, you need to protect against failures. Azure provides two primary mechanisms for ensuring virtual machine availability: Availability Sets and Availability Zones. Understanding the difference between them — and when to use each — is essential for designing resilient architectures.
Before discussing availability features, it's important to understand what can go wrong:
| Failure Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware failure | A physical component fails | Server power supply fails, memory error |
| Rack failure | An entire rack loses power or connectivity | Top-of-rack switch failure, rack PDU failure |
| Data centre failure | An entire facility is impacted | Power outage, cooling failure, natural disaster |
| Planned maintenance | Azure updates host OS or firmware | Monthly security patches, hardware upgrades |
Azure's availability features are designed to mitigate these scenarios.
An Availability Set distributes VMs across multiple fault domains and update domains within a single data centre.
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