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Things to consider during a transition to Azure China Regions

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 It seems that Azure regions from mainland China are getting more and more traction, becoming more attractive for US and EU organizations that want to expand their coverage. In this article, we cover 4 main topics that need to be taken into consideration when you need to deploy a solution to mainland China regions. 

There is a new challenge for the IT departments and IT Services companies that need to deploy line of business applications on Azure regions from China. If you already have applications running inside Azure Regions and you want to expand the coverage to China Azure regions, you need to be aware of the below checklist.

  • (1) The legal entity that creates and manage your subscription(s) from Azure China Regions
  • (2) Azure Services compatibility across Azure China Regions
  • (3) The great firewall (China firewall)
  • (4) Migration and Replication Tools


(1) The legal entity that creates and manage your subscription(s) from Azure China Regions

In comparison with public Azure regions that are managed by Microsoft, the Azure subscriptions from China regions can be created only by a Chinese entity. It means that you need to ensure that you create or partnership with a local organization from mainland China. 

During the registration process, you will notice that you need to specify a phone number and address from mainland China.

Once you have the account created, your IT global teams can manage the Azure Subscription(s) as they would be from any other Azure Regions using a dedicated Azure Portal and services endpoint for Azure China Regions. 

(2) Azure Services compatibility across Azure China Regions

The Azure inside China is operated by Shanghai Blue Cloud Technology, that is a subsidiary of 21Vianet, one of the biggest neutral 3rd party provider of Internet infrastructure. Because of this, the Azure Regions from China are disconnect from the rest of the world.

Releases of new Azure services, versions, and new features had their own timeline in China. Taking this into account you need to check the service compatibility level for applications that will run inside China. You want to avoid situations when a service is not in GA (General Availability) in China or a specific feature is not yet available in Azure Regions from China. Also, you need to be aware of the SDK version that can be used (because the Azure services API version might be different). A good starting point to do this check is - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/services/?regions=china-north,china-non-regional,europe-west,china-east,china-east-2,china-north-2&products=all

This concern can have an impact on your development, DevOps and operation teams, affecting directly the architecture and release plan. Because of it, you need to assess the compatibility level of your solutions with Azure China Regions and define a mitigation plan.

It is recommended to have a separate release cycle for systems that are running there, including a separate repository branch, that might require customization at different levels. The additional cost to build and manage applications for Azure China Regions is around 10% of the total cost of your solution.

All news and updates related to Azure China Regions are published on a separate portal - https://updates.azure.cn

(3) The Great Firewall (China firewall)

There are two important aspects of the Great Firewall that needs to be considered (3.1) access to external resources and (3.2) connection with other Azure Global Regions

(3.1) Access to external resources

The assumption that you will be able to access any resource from the internet from systems that are running inside China is false. You should validate that each external resource is public available from mainland China. In most cases, you will have 100% compatibility, but I have seen situations when a part of resources were not accessible and a mitigation solution had to be implemented.

(3.2) Connection with other Azure Global Regions

Azure Regions from China are disconnected from the rest of Azure Regions. There is no direct connection between them. Even so, you have the ability to configure an S2S VPN (Site-to-Site) or an Express Route for this purpose. 

If you use Hub-Spoke network topology, I would recommend creating a separate instance of Hub and Spokes for the networks that you have in China. Don't mix them with the one that you have inside Azure Global Regions or on-premises non-China locations. 

(4) Migration and Replication Tools

In comparison with other Azure Global Regions, you need to consider:

  1. How you migrate data to Azure China Regions
  2. What replication strategy you use to synchronize your data at the global level
  3. If you want your backups to remain inside Azure China Regions or move them to other global regions 

For each type of storage that you use from Azure, you need to identify the best strategy. I highly recommend reviewing the tools recommended by Azure Cloud Adoption Framework for data replication, migration, and data retention - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/migrate/azure-migration-guide/migrate?tabs=Tools

If you want to check how long it takes to replicate content inside Azure China Regions you can check my previous post - http://vunvulearadu.blogspot.com/2019/11/azure-storage-synchronization-between.html


Final thoughts 

 To ensure that you have a success story on deploying your systems to Azure China Regions you need to take into account what legal entity will manage your Azure China account, the compatibility level of your application with Azure Services that are running inside China, the Great Firewall and what migration and replication strategy you want to use. 

The additional cost that is generated by all activities to make your systems run with success in Azure China Regions is around 5-10% of your total cost of developing, automate and deploy your system Azure Global Regions. 

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