I'm trying to understand what we'd get out 'out of the box' for a SQL Server 2012 install on an Azure VM (Iaas) to determine if we need to do more (ie availabiltiy groups)
You apparently get 3 copies of your VM automatically. Under what conditions would you want to use an Availability Group with synchronous replication and automatic failover instead?
- Is VM failure automatically detected?
- What happens is MS performs maintenance?
- What do these 3 copies do for me?
Geo-replication provides and additonal 3 copies of your vm in a remote data center. Under what conditions would I need to use an AG with asynchronous replication instead? I understand that one case is if the data base files + log span more than one disk.