Scale targets for Elastic SAN

There are three main components to an elastic storage area network (SAN): the SAN itself, volume groups, and volumes.

The Elastic SAN

An Elastic SAN has three attributes that determine its performance: total capacity, IOPS, and throughput.

Capacity

The total capacity of your Elastic SAN is determined by two different capacities, the base capacity and the additional capacity. Increasing the base capacity also increases the SAN's IOPS and throughput but is more costly than increasing the additional capacity. Increasing additional capacity doesn't increase IOPS or throughput.

The region your SAN is located in and your SAN's redundancy determines its maximum total capacity. The minimum total capacity for an Elastic SAN is 1 tebibyte (TiB). Base or additional capacity can be increased in increments of 1 TiB.

IOPS

The IOPS of an Elastic SAN increases by 5,000 per base TiB. So if you had an Elastic SAN that has 6 TiB of base capacity, that SAN could still provide up to 30,000 IOPS. That same SAN would still provide 30,000 IOPS whether it had 50 TiB of additional capacity or 500 TiB of additional capacity, since the SAN's performance is only determined by the base capacity. The IOPS of an Elastic SAN are distributed among all its volumes.

Throughput

The throughput of an Elastic SAN increases by 200 MB/s per base TiB. So if you had an Elastic SAN that has 6 TiB of base capacity, that SAN could still provide up to 1200 MB/s. That same SAN would provide 1200 MB/s throughput whether it had 50 TiB of additional capacity or 500 TiB of additional capacity, since the SAN's performance is only determined by the base capacity. The throughput of an Elastic SAN is distributed among all its volumes.

Elastic SAN scale targets

The appliance scale targets vary depending on region and redundancy of the SAN itself. The following table breaks out the scale targets based on whether the SAN's redundancy is set to locally redundant storage (LRS) or zone-redundant storage (ZRS), and what region the SAN is in.

LRS

Different regions have varying levels of base storage capacity available. We break them down into two sets, regions with a higher base storage capacity available, and regions with a lower base storage capacity available. Other than the base storage capacity differences, which directly affect the available performance that a SAN can distribute to its volumes and volume groups, there are no differences between these sets of regions.

Higher available base storage capacity

The following regions are regions with higher base storage capacity available, and the table following the regions outlines their scale targets: Australia East, Brazil South, Canada Central, Germany West, North Europe, West Europe, UK South, East US, East US 2, South Central US, US Central, and West US 2.

Resource Values
Maximum number of Elastic SANs that can be deployed per subscription per region 5
Maximum capacity-only units (TiB) 600
Maximum base capacity units (TiB) 400
Minimum total SAN capacity (TiB) 1
Maximum total IOPS 2,000,000
Maximum total throughput (MB/s) 80,000
Lower available base storage capacity

The following regions are regions with lower base storage capacity available, and the table following the regions outlines their scale targets: East Asia, Korea Central, South Africa North, France Central, Southeast Asia, West US 3, Sweden Central, Switzerland North.

Resource Values
Maximum number of Elastic SANs that can be deployed per subscription per region 5
Maximum capacity-only units (TiB) 100
Maximum base capacity units (TiB) 100
Minimum total SAN capacity (TiB) 1
Maximum total IOPS 500,000
Maximum total throughput (MB/s) 20,000

ZRS

ZRS is only available in France Central, North Europe, West Europe and West US 2.

Resource France Central North Europe West Europe West US 2
Maximum number of Elastic SAN that can be deployed per subscription per region 5 5 5 5
Maximum capacity-only units (TiB) 200 200 200 200
Maximum base capacity units (TiB) 100 100 100 100
Minimum total SAN capacity (TiB) 1 1 1 1
Maximum total IOPS 500,000 500,000 500,000 500,000
Maximum total throughput (MB/s) 20,000 20,000 20,000 20,000

Quota and capacity increases

To increase quota, raise a support ticket with the subscription ID and region information to request for an increase in quota for the “Maximum number of Elastic SAN that can be deployed per subscription per region”.

For capacity increase requests, raise a support ticket with the subscription ID and the region information and it will be evaluated.

Volume group

An Elastic SAN can have a maximum of 200 volume groups, and a volume group can contain up to 1,000 volumes.

Volume

The performance of an individual volume is determined by its capacity. The maximum IOPS of a volume increases by 750 per GiB, up to a maximum of 80,000 IOPS. The maximum throughput increases by 60 MB/s per GiB, up to a maximum of 1,280 MB/s. A volume needs at least 106 GiB to be capable of using the maximum 80,000 IOPS. A volume needs at least 21 GiB in order to be capable of using the maximum 1,280 MB/s. The combined IOPS and throughput of all your volumes can't exceed the IOPS and throughput of your SAN.

Volume scale targets

Supported capacities Maximum potential IOPS Maximum potential throughput (MB/s)
1 GiB - 64 TiB 750 - 80,000 (increases by 750 per GiB) 60 - 1,280 (increases by 60 per GiB)

Next steps

Plan for deploying an Elastic SAN