Regions and AZs

Concepts

A region and availability zone (AZ) identify the location of a data center. You can create resources in regions and AZs.

• Regions are defined in terms of geographical location and network latency. Each region has its own shared public services (ECS, EVS, OBS, VPC, EIP, and IMS). Regions are either common or dedicated. A common region provides common cloud services available to all tenants. A dedicated region provides services of a specific type or only for specific tenants.
• An AZ contains one or more physical data centers. Each AZ has independent cooling, fire extinguishing, antimoisture, and electricity facilities. The computing, network, storage, and other resources in an AZ are logically divided into multiple clusters. AZs in a region are interconnected through high-speed optic fiber, so systems deployed across AZs can achieve higher availability.

Figure 1 shows the relationship between the regions and AZs.

Figure 1 Regions and AZs

How Do I Select a Region?

When selecting a region, consider the following:

• Location

  Select a region close to you or your target users for lower network latency and faster access. Regions in the Chinese mainland provide the same infrastructure, BGP network quality, and operations and configurations on resources. Therefore, if your target users are in the Chinese mainland, you do not need to consider network latency differences when selecting a region.

  Countries and regions outside the Chinese mainland, such as Bangkok and Hong Kong, provide services for users outside the Chinese mainland. If you or your target users are in the Chinese mainland, these regions are not recommended due to high access latency.

  • If you or your target users are in the Asia Pacific region (excluding the Chinese mainland), select the AP-Bangkok or AP-Singapore region.
  • If you or your target users are in Africa, select the AF-Johannesburg region.
  • If you or your target users are in Europe, select the EU-Paris region.
• Resource pricing

  This varies by region. For details, see the pricing details.

How Do I Select an AZ?

Consider your requirements for DR and network latency when selecting an AZ:

• Deploy resources in different AZs in the same region for DR purposes.
• Deploy resources in the same AZ for minimum latency.

Regions and Endpoints

When you use resources with API calls, you must specify the regional endpoint. Obtain the regions and endpoints from the enterprise administrator.