Regions, region pairs, and availability zones
How Azure organizes datacenters globally and why that matters for resilience.
Learning objectives
Work through each idea below. Use Listen to hear the explanation — pick a voice next to Listen anytime (Sophia is the default).
- Region
- Availability zone
- Zone-redundant services can survive a datacenter-level outage within a region.
- Region pair
- Geography
- Service availability and zone support can differ by region—check product docs when designing.
Region
Speed
geographic area containing Azure datacenters connected by a low-latency network.
Availability zone
Speed
one or more datacenters with independent power, cooling, and networking in a region.
Zone-redundant services can survive a datacenter-level outage within a region.
Speed
Zone-redundant services can survive a datacenter-level outage within a region.
Region pair
Speed
paired regions in the same geography used for some platform replication/DR guidance.
Geography
Speed
area that contains one or more regions and helps with data residency and compliance.
Service availability and zone support can differ by region—check product docs when designing.
Speed
Service availability and zone support can differ by region—check product docs when designing.