AZURE NEWS: Enable azure site recovery (ASR) while Azure Virtual Machines are created

In-line enablement of ASR at the time of VM creation, a new feature just released by Microsoft. This capability helps you avoid the hassle of separately configuring DR across regions (or zones) after the creation of VMs. ASR is a key pillar of Microsoft’s resiliency offering, which allows you to protect your Azure VMs against regional outages.

Here are some key takeaways from the announcement:

• Announcing a new capability in Azure Site Recovery (ASR) to further improve the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) posture of Azure VMs – in-line enablement of ASR at the time of VM creation.
• You will be able to enable ASR while creating a VM.
• Microsoft recognizes that as you move more and more business-critical applications to Azure, their resilience is of prime importance.
• Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is a key pillar of Microsoft’s resiliency offering, which allows you to protect your Azure VMs against regional outages.
• This capability helps you avoid the hassle of separately configuring DR across regions after the creation of VMs.
• Previously, you had to follow through and execute a different workflow to protect the VM from regional outages after the VM was up and running.
• ASR will be one of the VM Management options alongside the ones currently available to you for configuration – Monitoring, Identity, and Backup, among others.

How to enable ASR when creating a VM?:

• Go to ‘Virtual machines’ in the Azure Portal and click on ‘+ Add.’
• Go to the Management tab and select ‘Enable Disaster Recovery’ under ‘Site Recovery.’
• Fill out the relevant selections and proceed to create your VM.
• Once the VM is created, Azure will automatically enable replication within a few minutes.