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What is Availability zone?

A group of one or more data centers within a cloud region (a geographic area with data centers) whose power, cooling and networking are independent of the other zones. Zones are connected by low-latency links, so placing server and data replicas across several zones keeps the service running even if one zone fails (for example, through a power outage or equipment failure). Disasters affecting a whole area are covered by replicating to another region. Communication between zones also has latency and may be charged.

Japanese name: アベイラビリティゾーン

Availability zone appears in 2 practice questions across 1 topic, including Cloud and Container Basics.

Field: Cloud and Container Basics

Try it: questions about Availability zone

In the cloud, which of the following is the main purpose of placing web servers and database replicas across several availability zones within the same region?

  1. ATo keep the service running in other zones even when a failure on the scale of a single data center (such as a power or cooling failure) occurs
  2. BTo place servers in various parts of the world so that responses come from places near users, reducing communication latency
  3. CBecause communication between zones has no latency and no charge, making processing faster and cheaper than in a single zone
Show answer and explanation

Answer: A. To keep the service running in other zones even when a failure on the scale of a single data center (such as a power or cooling failure) occurs

A region is a geographic area where a cloud provider has data centers, and an availability zone within it is a group of one or more data centers whose power, cooling and networking are independent of the other zones. Zones are connected by low-latency links, so placing servers and data replicas across several zones lets the service continue in the remaining zones if one zone stops. To prepare for disasters that affect a whole area, replicas are also placed in another region. Communication between zones does have latency and may be charged, so the design must take the data replication method into account.

Availability zone in the explanations

Questions that mention Availability zone (2)

  1. In the cloud, which of the following is the main purpose of placing web servers and database replicas across several availability zones within the same region?
  2. Which of the following generally applies to how many public clouds charge for data transfer?

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Related terms

Autoscaling Blue-green deployment Canary release Container Container image Docker Immutable infrastructure Infrastructure as code (IaC) Kubernetes Object storage

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