Azure Backed Win Domain Files Services (AzDFS) is a subscription-based, native Windows storage solution offered by UDIT that allows University departments to locally manage University information. Data is served from on-premise, virtual caching machines with Azure based storage and backups.
This service incurs chargebacks which are done on a monthly basis. Rates are based on the cost for the local virtual machines, and the Azure service. The virtual machines (VMs) are typically charged at $82/month, while the storage can be estimated using the Azure Calculator. For UD's configuration, you can add a storage account to the estimate and then set:
- Region: East US
- Type: Azure Files
- Tier: Cool (UDIT has found that the caching server set to cool is typically the most economical option)
- Redundancy: ZRS
- Put in your storage estimate and an equal amount of “Snapshots”. Note that this is your actual usage, not allocated. If you are using 2000GB and delete 100GB, then you will get charged for 1900GB. This is computed daily.
- The Transactions and Data Transfer options are crucial for an accurate estimate, but often prove to be difficult to obtain. Our year+ pilot of this service has shown these to be reasonable estimates:
| Usage |
Write |
List |
Read |
Other |
| Light |
1 |
50 |
10 |
10 |
| Medium |
25 |
200 |
100 |
10 |
| Heavy |
100 |
400 |
750 |
50 |
Usage is based on a combination of the number of files, the number of users, and the frequency of usage. If you have 200 users constantly working in and from a file share that has billions of files and folders, then you’ll be in the heavy usage category. If you have 5 users working in a share with thousands of files, then you’re probably in the light category.
Charges for the Azure portion are sent monthly, while the VM portions are charged annually.
AzDFS shares can be requested with a minimum quota of 500GB and a maximum of 5PB. AzDFS is suitable for storing Tier 1 and 2 University information. Tier 3 data should not be stored in this system as it does not meet needed security protections. All information stored on Win DFS is subject to University information classification and protection requirements.