Service levels for Azure NetApp Files

Service levels are an attribute of a capacity pool. Service levels are defined and differentiated by the allowed maximum throughput for a volume in the capacity pool based on the quota assigned to the volume. Throughput is a combination of read and write speed.

Supported service levels

Azure NetApp Files supports five service levels: Elastic, Flexible, Standard, Premium, and Ultra.

The Flexible, Standard, Premium, and Ultra service levels deliver in‑Azure bare‑metal flash performance. The Elastic service level runs on Azure infrastructure and provides built‑in zonal redundancy with low single‑digit millisecond latency.

• Elastic service level (preview): Elastic is an advanced, high-availability service level designed to deliver continuous data access with zero data loss even if an entire Azure Availability Zone becomes unavailable. This service eliminates single points of failure, making it ideal for mission-critical workloads that require uncompromising resilience and in-region data protection.

  With the Elastic service level, you can:

  • Create capacity pools from 1 TiB to 128 TiB with shared QoS across volumes for seamless workload adaptation.
  • Provision volumes as small as 1 GiB, giving you flexibility to optimize storage for workloads of any size.
  • Achieve throughput of 32 MiB/s per 1 TiB, ensuring predictable performance at scale.

  For more information including a review of the available features, see Understand Elastic zone-redundant storage.

• Flexible service level: The Flexible service level enables you to adjust throughput and size limits independently. You can use the Flexible service level to create high-capacity volumes with low throughput requirements or the reverse: low-capacity volumes with high throughput requirements. The Flexible service level is designed for demanding applications such as Oracle or SAP HANA.

  The minimum throughput you can assign a Flexible capacity pool is 128 MiB/second regardless of the pool quota. The maximum throughput is 5 x 128 MiB/second/TiB x the size of the capacity pool in TiB. For more information, see Flexible service level throughput examples and considerations for the Flexible service level.

  Important

  The Flexible service level is only supported for new manual QoS capacity pools.

• Standard service level:
  The Standard service level provides up to 16 MiB/s of throughput per 1 TiB of capacity provisioned.

• Premium service level:
  The Premium service level provides up to 64 MiB/s of throughput per 1 TiB of capacity provisioned.

• Ultra service level:
  The Ultra service level provides up to 128 MiB/s of throughput per 1 TiB of capacity provisioned.

Storage with cool access

Cool access storage is available with the Standard, Premium, Ultra, and Flexible service levels. The throughput experience for any of these service levels with cool access is the same for cool access as it is for data in the hot tier. Throughput experiences differ when data that resides in the cool tier is accessed. For more information, see Azure NetApp Files storage with cool access and Performance considerations for storage with cool access.

Throughput limits

The throughput limit for a volume is determined by the combination of the following factors:

• The service level of the capacity pool to which the volume belongs
• The quota assigned to the volume
• The QoS type (auto or manual) of the capacity pool

Throughput limit examples of volumes in an auto QoS capacity pool

The following diagram shows throughput limit examples of volumes in an auto QoS capacity pool:

• In Example 1, a volume from an auto QoS capacity pool with the Premium service level that is assigned 2 TiB of quota will be assigned a throughput limit of 128 MiB/s (2 TiB * 64 MiB/s). This scenario applies regardless of the capacity pool size or the actual volume consumption.

• In Example 2, a volume from an auto QoS capacity pool at the Premium service level with 100 GiB of quota has an assigned throughput limit of 6.25 MiB/s (0.09765625 TiB * 64 MiB/s). This scenario applies regardless of the capacity pool size or the actual volume consumption.

Throughput limit examples of volumes in a manual QoS capacity pool

If you use a manual QoS capacity pool, you can assign the capacity and throughput for a volume independently. When you create a volume in a manual QoS capacity pool, you can specify the throughput (MiB/S) value. The total throughput assigned to volumes in a manual QoS capacity pool depends on the size of the pool and the service level. Throughput limits for the Standard, Premium, and Ultra service levels are capped by a formula: capacity pool size in TiB x service level throughput/TiB. For instance, a 10-TiB capacity pool with the Ultra service level has a total throughput capacity of 1,280 MiB/s (10 TiB x 128 MiB/s/TiB) available for the volumes. For the Flexible service level, the formula is 5 x capacity pool size in TiB x minimum service level throughput (128 MiB/s/TiB). For example, see Flexible service level throughput examples.

For example, for an SAP HANA system, this capacity pool can be used to create the following volumes. Each volume provides the individual size and throughput to meet your application requirements:

• SAP HANA data volume: Size 4 TiB with up to 704 MiB/s
• SAP HANA log volume: Size 0.5 TiB with up to 256 MiB/s
• SAP HANA shared volume: Size 1 TiB with up to 64 MiB/s
• SAP HANA backup volume: Size 4.5 TiB with up to 256 MiB/s

The following diagram illustrates the scenarios for the SAP HANA volumes:

The following diagram illustrates the scenarios for the SAP HANA volumes but with the Flexible service level and a baseline throughput of 128 MiB/S:

The example extends to the Flexible service level as well. A Flexible service level capacity pool can be used to create the following volumes. Each volume provides the individual size and throughput to meet your application requirements:

• SAP HANA data volume: Size 4 TiB with up to 704 MiB/s
• SAP HANA log volume: Size 0.5 TiB with up to 256 MiB/s
• SAP HANA shared volume: Size 1 TiB with up to 64 MiB/s
• SAP HANA backup volume: Size 4.5 TiB with up to 384 MiB/s

As illustrated in the diagram, the SAP HANA backup volume receives baseline throughput of 128 MiB/s.

Flexible service level throughput examples:

Throughput limits examples in a Shared QoS capacity pool

In a shared QoS capacity pool, all volumes draw from a common throughput pool instead of each volume having a fixed limit. The total throughput available for the pool is determined by the capacity pool's size (TiB) and Elastic service level. For example, a zone-redundant capacity pool provides 32 MiB/s of throughput per 1 TiB of provisioned capacity, scaling up linearly (a 128 TiB pool yields 4,096 MiB/s total). Volumes in a shared QoS pool don't have individual throughput limits. Instead any volume can consume throughput on demand up to the pool's total limit, if capacity is available. A volume's throughput consumption counts against the pools overall throughput budget, thereby reducing what remains for other volumes.

This dynamic allocation is managed by Azure NetApp Files to ensure each volume still meets its performance targets (throughput and latency) while staying within the pool’s total throughput. Shared QoS is only available for the Elastic service levels (for instance, when using the zone-redundant service level), and there is no way to convert to auto or manual QoS. For specific throughput values and limits at different pool sizes and service levels, refer to Resource limits for Azure NetApp Files.

Throughput is allocated per the following table:

Next steps

• Azure NetApp Files pricing page
• Cost model for Azure NetApp Files
• Create a capacity pool
• Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Azure NetApp Files
• Dynamically change the service level of a volume
• Service-level objectives