title: Questions about Active Geo-Replication (and how it interacts with local, within-datacenter, redundancy)
body: <p>I just read <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-geo-replication-overview/#termination-of-a-continuous-copy-relationship" rel="nofollow">this</a><a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-geo-replication-overview/#termination-of-a-continuous-copy-relationship" rel="nofollow">Active Geo-Replication for Azure SQL Database</a> article on active geo-replication and have some questions.  I posted these questions on the page with the article but haven't gotten a reply yet. </p>
  
  <p>Could really use help!</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>“Every forced termination results in the irreversible loss of the replication relationship between the primary database and the associated online secondary database.”  What does irreversible mean here?  Does it mean that in order to re-establish a replication relationship between the primary database and an associated online secondary database after a forced termination, we’d need to start over with seeding another online secondary database?</p></li>
  <li><p>“Local data redundancy and operational recovery are standard features for Azure SQL Database. Each database possesses one primary and two local replica databases that reside in the same datacenter, providing high availability within that datacenter. This means that the Active Geo-Replication databases also have redundant replicas. Both the primary and online secondary databases have two secondary replicas.”  So, if we imagine we have active geo-replication up and running and the primary database is lost for some reason.  Will Azure SQL automatically put one of the remaining two local replicas that exist within the same datacenter as part of the standard local data redundancy and operational recovery Azure SQL feature in place of the primary database that was just lost with no impact to existing connections?  If so, I would take that to mean that the only case in which a forced termination of the replication relationship between the primary database and the online secondary (via geo-replication) would only be necessary would be if all 3 copies of the database existing in the local datacenter were lost.  Is that right?</p></li>
  <li><p>Using an active geo-replication configuration, can online secondary databases be in the same region as the primary?  Say we wanted active geo replication within the same region for a time.  Is that doable?  I realize that, from a regional disaster perspective, having online secondaries in the same region would defeat the purpose.  Still would be good to know if it’s doable.</p></li>
  </ol>