Can I create a repository in the cloud?

So I'm a support guy for Quest. I have a couple of cores in a lab environment that I use to replicate data to an Azure target. My change rate is fairly low at only about 20 GB per day. My network link is only 10 Mbps upload from the lab to the WAN so the maximum I can push up to Azure is pretty small too. I don't have a replication schedule so it pushes data up after each backup. I do have virtual standby set up on the Azure core to export data to Azure standby VMs.

To purchase the VM template you need to create an Azure Portal account (portal.azure.com) and then you'll be able to choose which Azure services you want to use. Here is our document on setting up the Azure replication target - support.quest.com/.../downloads. You'll want to search the Azure Marketplace for "Rapid Recovery" and you'll be able to purchase the Template VM there. As part of the purchase you have to choose a size for the VM which tells you the maximum resources available for that VM and the cost per month. My VM is a "Standard DS2 v2 (2 cores, 7 GB memory)". It's a little undersized for our minimum requirements, but it works. Just be aware that depending on your load you may need to increase your VM in size. That's pretty easy to do but you'll be limited in what sizes are available by the location you chose for the VM (all of that is documented by Azure). Make sure to read the limitations of the VM sizes as they can significantly impact you. Things like total network throughput, disk throughput, etc. I can say that I honestly haven't had any problems, but only have about 1 TB of my 4 TB repo used.

Once you've purchased the VM you'll be able to RDP to it. Before doing that though, I recommend adding disks to the VM so that you have the storage allocated and setting the public IP address to be static (otherwise it will change on you regularly). From there you can follow that setup guide I posted above to get the core functional and the storage added into a repository.

I have only priced an equivalent VM once in Amazon EC2. The number of options in EC2 are far more complicated, but far more flexible. I was looking at an m4.large instance and then 4 TB of elastic block storage (EBS). That would give you a VM with 4 TB of disk space. The cost is going to depend on how you pay for it. If you pay on-demand (meaning you are charged as it is in use) then it's more expensive than if you purchase for a full year. I priced the m4.large instance for a full year and it came out to about $115 a month. Adding on the EBS was an additional $185 a month. So total cost a month was about $300. Based on that, Azure looks to be the cheaper option.

***Disclaimer - this is only my personal research as I look through the options. I'm sure if you contacted Azure or Amazon with the specs you need, they may be able to get a better price. Both providers can change their pricing at any time, so it's best to look at the pricing prior to purchase and do your own comparison.

So I'm a support guy for Quest. I have a couple of cores in a lab environment that I use to replicate data to an Azure target. My change rate is fairly low at only about 20 GB per day. My network link is only 10 Mbps upload from the lab to the WAN so the maximum I can push up to Azure is pretty small too. I don't have a replication schedule so it pushes data up after each backup. I do have virtual standby set up on the Azure core to export data to Azure standby VMs.

To purchase the VM template you need to create an Azure Portal account (portal.azure.com) and then you'll be able to choose which Azure services you want to use. Here is our document on setting up the Azure replication target - support.quest.com/.../downloads. You'll want to search the Azure Marketplace for "Rapid Recovery" and you'll be able to purchase the Template VM there. As part of the purchase you have to choose a size for the VM which tells you the maximum resources available for that VM and the cost per month. My VM is a "Standard DS2 v2 (2 cores, 7 GB memory)". It's a little undersized for our minimum requirements, but it works. Just be aware that depending on your load you may need to increase your VM in size. That's pretty easy to do but you'll be limited in what sizes are available by the location you chose for the VM (all of that is documented by Azure). Make sure to read the limitations of the VM sizes as they can significantly impact you. Things like total network throughput, disk throughput, etc. I can say that I honestly haven't had any problems, but only have about 1 TB of my 4 TB repo used.

Once you've purchased the VM you'll be able to RDP to it. Before doing that though, I recommend adding disks to the VM so that you have the storage allocated and setting the public IP address to be static (otherwise it will change on you regularly). From there you can follow that setup guide I posted above to get the core functional and the storage added into a repository.

I have only priced an equivalent VM once in Amazon EC2. The number of options in EC2 are far more complicated, but far more flexible. I was looking at an m4.large instance and then 4 TB of elastic block storage (EBS). That would give you a VM with 4 TB of disk space. The cost is going to depend on how you pay for it. If you pay on-demand (meaning you are charged as it is in use) then it's more expensive than if you purchase for a full year. I priced the m4.large instance for a full year and it came out to about $115 a month. Adding on the EBS was an additional $185 a month. So total cost a month was about $300. Based on that, Azure looks to be the cheaper option.

***Disclaimer - this is only my personal research as I look through the options. I'm sure if you contacted Azure or Amazon with the specs you need, they may be able to get a better price. Both providers can change their pricing at any time, so it's best to look at the pricing prior to purchase and do your own comparison.