Azure Regions, Region Pairs, and Sovereign Regions
Slide deck explaining Azure location terminology including regions, geographies, Availability Zones, region pairs, and sovereign clouds, with guidance on selection and common pitfalls.
Azure Regions, Region Pairs, and Sovereign Regions
Introduction to Azure Regions, Region Pairs, and Sovereign Regions, covering location terminology and selection criteria.
Azure Regions, Region Pairs, and Sovereign Regions
Introduction to Azure Regions, Region Pairs, and Sovereign Regions, covering location terminology and selection criteria.
Azure location terms (the essentials)
Use the right term for the right layer: geography, region, zone. Region: where resources run. Geography: residency boundary (high-level). Availability Zone (AZ): fault-isolated location inside a region. Region pair: two regions linked within a geography. Sovereign cloud: separate Azure environment.
Azure region
A region is where your Azure resources run. Set of datacenters in a specific area. Connected through a low-latency network. Region choice affects latency. Region choice affects data location at a high level.
Azure geography
A geography groups regions and is often used as a residency boundary. Contains one or more regions. Commonly used for data residency boundaries. Helps with compliance/residency reasoning. Geography helps narrow region choices.
Availability Zone (AZ)
An Availability Zone (AZ) is a fault-isolated location inside a region. AZ is inside a region (not the same as a region). Designed for fault isolation. Not all regions support AZs. Not all services are in every region.
Geography → Region → Availability Zone (AZ)
Each term is a different layer of the location decision. Geography: residency boundary (high-level). Region: where resources are deployed. AZ: fault-isolated location inside a region. Use the hierarchy to prevent confusion.
Region pairs
Region pairing supports platform behaviors, not automatic workload resilience. Two regions linked within the same geography. Helps with large disruption planning (platform-level). Updates can be staged across the pair. Your workload still needs explicit resilience design.
Region selection: boundary first, then latency
Start with residency constraints, then choose the closest region inside them. Step 1: confirm residency boundary (geography). Step 2: shortlist compliant regions. Step 3: optimize for latency inside the shortlist. Don't assume compliance is automatic.
Region pairs and DR (Disaster Recovery)
Use region pairs for planning, then design DR explicitly. Region pair can guide secondary region choice. DR (Disaster Recovery) needs workload design. Decide replication, failover, and recovery steps. 'Paired' does not equal automatic DR.
Sovereign clouds
A sovereign cloud is a separate Azure environment for sovereignty requirements. Separate environment (not just a region choice). Built for specific national/government needs. Examples: Azure Government, Azure China. Chosen for sovereignty requirements, not latency.
When you need a sovereign cloud
Choose a sovereign cloud when separation is required, not just a location. Trigger: 'separate environment' requirement. Driven by sovereignty/compliance rules. Not solved by 'public region in-country'. Decide based on environment separation needs.
Translate the conversation using the hierarchy
Map each phrase to the correct layer: boundary, deployment, or fault isolation. 'Keep data inside geography' equals boundary. 'Choose an EU region' equals deployment location. 'Deploy to two zones' equals fault isolation inside region. Use the hierarchy to avoid mixing terms.
Common pitfalls
Most mistakes come from mixing layers or assuming automation. Geography does not equal region; region does not equal Availability Zone (AZ). Verify service/feature availability by region. Region pairing does not equal automatic HA (High Availability) / DR (Disaster Recovery). Sovereign cloud does not equal 'any compliance requirement'.