1.2
Global infrastructure (Region / AZ / Edge)
Choose Regions using latency, cost, compliance, residency, and service availability; distinguish AZs and edge locations.
Key points
- Region = geographic area with multiple isolated AZs.
- AZ = isolated location within a Region for redundancy.
- Edge locations cache content closer to users (e.g. CloudFront).
Region
An AWS Region is a geographic area containing multiple Availability Zones.
Examples include US East, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
Selecting a Region
- Latency
- Cost
- Compliance
- Data residency
- Service availability
Availability Zone
An Availability Zone (AZ) is an isolated location within an AWS Region.
Region ├── Availability Zone A ├── Availability Zone B └── Availability Zone C
Deploying an application across multiple Availability Zones can improve availability.
Edge location
Edge locations are locations closer to end users where AWS services such as CloudFront can cache and deliver content.
Exam trap
Region ≠ Availability Zone ≠ Edge Location — do not swap these terms in scenario questions.
Exam focus
Region ≠ AZ ≠ edge location is a classic distractor set.