Tag Archives: Geo Replication

.NET Core web API + Dapper – Readonly query workloads with Geo Replication

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Geo Replication process

One of the easiest ways to create read-only replicas of an Azure SQL Database database is with Active geo-replication(it’s also useful for disaster recovery with geo-failure to a geo-secondary in a different Azure Region).

The first step was to remove all the Microsoft SQL Server features used in the The World Wide Importers database (e.g. Memory Optimized tables) which were not supported by the Azure SQL Database tier I was using.

SQL Service Management Studio(SSMS) Deploy to Azure wizard

I then used the “Deploy Database Wizard” to copy my modified World Wide Importers database to an Azure SQL Database.

Azure Portal Primary Database in SQL Service Management Studio(SSMS)

I then created replicas in the same region (if the application had a global customer base creating read only geo replicas in regions close to users might be worth considering) for the read-only queries.

Azure SQL Database no replicas configured
Azure Portal Create Geo Replica

I created four replicas which is the maximum number supported. If more replicas were required a secondary of a secondary (a process known as chaining) could be use to create additional geo-replicas

Azure Portal Primary Database and four Geo-replicas
Azure Portal Primary Database and Geo-replicas in SQL Service Management Studio(SSMS)
Azure Application Insights showing multiple Geo-Replicas being used.

The Azure Database Geo-replication was pretty easy to setup. For a production scenario where only a portion of the database (e.g. shaped by Customer or Geography) is required it might not be the “right hammer”.

WebAPI Dapper Azure Resource Group

The other limitation I encountered was the resources used by the replication of “transaction processing” tables (in the World Wide Importers database tables like the Sales.OrderLines, Sales.CustomerTransactions etc.) which often wouldn’t be required for read-only applications.