AWS Regions and Availability Zones
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a cloud computing platform that
provides a variety of services to users. To provide high availability, AWS has
divided its infrastructure into regions and availability zones.
AWS Regions are geographical locations where AWS has data
centers. Each region is completely independent and isolated from other regions
in terms of network, power, and cooling infrastructure.
There are currently 26 regions around the world, with more
being added regularly. Some of the regions include US East (N. Virginia), US
West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), etc.
Availability Zones (AZs) are physical data centers within a
region. Each AZ is isolated from the others in terms of power, network, and
cooling infrastructure.
These AZs are connected with high-speed, low-latency links to
form a region. By spreading resources across multiple AZs, users can ensure
their applications remain available even if one or more AZs experience an
outage.
For example, if you have an application running in the US
East (N. Virginia) region, you could launch instances in one or more
availability zones within that region. By doing so, your application will be
highly available and fault-tolerant.
In summary, AWS Regions and Availability Zones are designed to provide high availability and redundancy for AWS customers. By spreading their resources across multiple regions and AZs, users can ensure their applications are highly available and can withstand unexpected failures.