Global Infrastructure
AWS Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations
The geographic building blocks of AWS: Regions are separate geographic areas, Availability Zones are isolated locations within a Region, and edge locations bring selected services closer to users.
Key points
- A Region contains multiple Availability Zones.
- Multiple AZs reduce reliance on a single failure location and support high availability.
- Multiple Regions address needs such as disaster recovery, sovereignty, business continuity, or global latency.
- Edge locations serve services such as CloudFront and do not replace Regions or AZs.
Best-known use cases
- Deploy across AZs for high availability within a Region.
- Use an additional Region when a requirement crosses Regional boundaries.
- Cache content near viewers at edge locations.
What candidates often confuse it with
- High availability within a Region commonly uses multiple AZs; multi-Region designs address broader failure or locality requirements.
- An edge location delivers or routes content near users; it is not where an ordinary multi-AZ application is hosted.
Key Cloud Practitioner takeaway
Region contains AZs; multiple AZs support high availability; edge locations reduce distance for edge services.
Related services
- Amazon CloudFront
- Amazon Route 53
Relevant exam tasks
- D3.2