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--- title: Enable accelerated networking for Azure VM disaster recovery with Azure Site Recovery description: Describes how to enable Accelerated Networking with Azure Site Recovery for Azure virtual machine disaster recovery author: Jeronika-MS ms.service: azure-site-recovery ms.topic: concept-article ms.date: 02/12/2026 ms.author: v-gajeronika ms.reviewer: v-gajeronika ms.custom: engagement-fy23, linux-related-content # Customer intent: As a cloud administrator, I want to enable Accelerated Networking for Azure VMs during disaster recovery, so that I can improve network performance and minimize latency for critical workloads in Azure Site Recovery. --- # Accelerated Networking with Azure virtual machine disaster recovery Accelerated Networking enables single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) to a VM, greatly improving its networking performance. This high-performance path bypasses the host from the datapath, reducing latency, jitter, and CPU utilization, for use with the most demanding network workloads on supported VM types. The following picture shows communication between two VMs with and without accelerated networking: :::image type="content" source="./media/azure-vm-disaster-recovery-with-accelerated-networking/accelerated-networking-benefit.png" alt-text="Screenshot of difference between accelerated and nonaccelerated networking." lightbox="./media/azure-vm-disaster-recovery-with-accelerated-networking/accelerated-networking-benefit.png"::: Azure Site Recovery enables you to use the benefits of Accelerated Networking for Azure virtual machines that you fail over to a different Azure region. This article describes how you can enable Accelerated Networking for Azure virtual machines replicated with Azure Site Recovery. ## Prerequisites Before you begin, make sure you understand: - Azure virtual machine [replication architecture](azure-to-azure-architecture.md) - [Setting up replication](azure-to-azure-tutorial-enable-replication.md) for Azure virtual machines - [Failing over](azure-to-azure-tutorial-failover-failback.md) Azure virtual machines ## Accelerated Networking with Windows VMs Azure Site Recovery supports enabling Accelerated Networking for replicated virtual machines only if the source virtual machine has Accelerated Networking enabled. If your source virtual machine doesn't have Accelerated Networking enabled, you can learn how to enable Accelerated Networking for Windows virtual machines [here](../virtual-network/create-vm-accelerated-networking-powershell.md#enable-accelerated-networking-on-existing-vms). ### Supported operating systems The following distributions are supported out of the box from the Azure Gallery: * **Windows Server 2022 Datacenter** * **Windows Server 2019 Datacenter** * **Windows Server 2016 Datacenter** * **Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter** ### Supported VM instances Accelerated Networking is supported on most general purpose and compute-optimized instance sizes with two or more vCPUs. These supported series are: D/DSv2 and F/Fs. On instances that support hyperthreading, Accelerated Networking is supported on VM instances with four or more vCPUs. Supported series are: D/DSv3, E/ESv3, Fsv2, and Ms/Mms. For more information on VM instances, see [Windows VM sizes](/azure/virtual-machines/sizes?toc=%2fazure%2fvirtual-network%2ftoc.json). ## Accelerated Networking with Linux VMs Azure Site Recovery supports enabling Accelerated Networking for replicated virtual machines only if the source virtual machine has Accelerated Networking enabled. If your source virtual machine doesn't have Accelerated Networking enabled, you can learn how to enable Accelerated Networking for Linux virtual machines [here](../virtual-network/create-vm-accelerated-networking-cli.md#enable-accelerated-networking-on-existing-vms). ### Supported operating systems The following distributions are supported out of the box from the Azure Gallery: * **Ubuntu 16.04** * **SLES 12 SP3** * **RHEL 7.4** * **CoreOS Linux** * **Debian "Stretch" with backports kernel** * **Oracle Linux 7.4** ### Supported VM instances Accelerated Networking is supported on most general purpose and compute-optimized instance sizes with two or more vCPUs. These supported series are: D/DSv2 and F/Fs. On instances that support hyperthreading, Accelerated Networking is supported on VM instances with four or more vCPUs. Supported series are: D/DSv3, E/ESv3, Fsv2, and Ms/Mms. For more information on VM instances, see [Linux VM sizes](/azure/virtual-machines/sizes?toc=%2fazure%2fvirtual-network%2ftoc.json). ## Enabling Accelerated Networking for replicated VMs When you [enable replication](azure-to-azure-tutorial-enable-replication.md) for Azure virtual machines, Site Recovery automatically detects whether the virtual machine network interfaces have Accelerated Networking enabled. If Accelerated Networking is already enabled, Site Recovery automatically configures Accelerated Networking on the network interfaces of the replicated virtual machine. You can verify the status of Accelerated Networking under the respective NIC's tab in the **Network** settings for the replicated virtual machine. :::image type="content" source="./media/azure-vm-disaster-recovery-with-accelerated-networking/compute-network-accelerated-networking.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Accelerated Networking setting." lightbox="./media/azure-vm-disaster-recovery-with-accelerated-networking/compute-network-accelerated-networking.png"::: If you enable Accelerated Networking on the source virtual machine after enabling replication, you can enable Accelerated Networking for the replicated virtual machine's network interfaces by the following process: 1. Open **Network** settings for the replicated virtual machine. 1. Select the name of the network interface under the **Network interfaces** section. 1. Select **Enabled** from the dropdown for Accelerated Networking under the **Target** column. :::image type="content" source="./media/azure-vm-disaster-recovery-with-accelerated-networking/network-interface-accelerated-networking-enabled.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Enable Accelerated Networking." lightbox="./media/azure-vm-disaster-recovery-with-accelerated-networking/network-interface-accelerated-networking-enabled.png"::: Follow the preceding process for existing replicated virtual machines that didn't previously have Accelerated Networking enabled automatically by Site Recovery. ## Next steps - Learn more about the [benefits of Accelerated Networking](../virtual-network/accelerated-networking-overview.md#benefits). - Learn more about limitations and constraints of Accelerated Networking for [Windows virtual machines](../virtual-network/accelerated-networking-overview.md#limitations-and-constraints) and [Linux virtual machines](../virtual-network/accelerated-networking-overview.md#limitations-and-constraints). - Learn more about [recovery plans](site-recovery-create-recovery-plans.md) to automate application failover.