I have a number of Azure SQL databases, all getting backed up both Point-in-Time and Long-term_Retention. All works fine. After assuring my client that these are backed up extremely well and come with Microsoft's read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) the client has asked me where these backups are physically. They are keen that these backups are not stored outside Europe in this case. After much searching through both the Portal and Ms Docs, I'm struggling to find an answer. Anyone know?
Many thanks!
Azure to make sure that backups are preserved even if a data center is unavailable, they geo-replicate backups. So backups are sent to a paired region and Azure customers have no control over which secondary region is used.
In the case of Europe, the paired region for North Europe is West Europe. So backups do not go outside Europe. If you live in Germany the case is different, because the paired region for Germany Central is Germany Northeast.
The full list of paired regions can be found here.