AWS infra: Region and AZ
Region
Region is a physical location around the world where we cluster data centers.
We call each group of logical data centers an Availability Zone. Each AWS Region consists of a minimum of three, isolated, and physically separate AZs within a geographic area.
Availability Zone
An Availability Zone (AZ) is one or more discrete data centers with redundant power, networking, and connectivity in an AWS Region.
All AZs in an AWS Region are interconnected with high-bandwidth, low-latency networking, over fully redundant, dedicated metro fiber providing high-throughput, low-latency networking between AZs. All traffic between AZs is encrypted.
AZs are physically separated by a meaningful distance, many kilometers, from any other AZ, although all are within 100 km (60 miles) of each other.
- Australia (Sydney) Region: Availability Zones: 3
- US East (Northern Virginia) Region: Availability Zones: 6
- US West (Oregon) Region: Availability Zones: 4
- Europe (Ireland) Region: Availability Zones: 3
How to choose an AWS Region
- Compliance with data governance and legal requirements: data never leaves a Region without your explicit permission
- Proximity to customers: reduced latency
- Available services within a Region: new services and new features aren't available in every Region
- Pricing: the pricing varies Region to Region and is transparent in the service pricing page