Azure Fundamentals Episode 7: Azure Physical Infrastructure

Episode Objectives

• Understanding core architectural components in Azure:
  • Data centers
  • Regions
  • Region pairs
  • Geographies
  • Availability zones
• Benefits and usage of these components in applications

Data Centers

• Definition: Physical infrastructure that hosts servers for Azure services (e.g., SQL databases, virtual machines).
• Characteristics:
  • Group of network servers
  • Own power, cooling, and networking infrastructure
• Importance: Building blocks of global Azure infrastructure.

Regions

• Definition: Geographical areas consisting of one or more connected data centers.
• Key Points:
  • Low latency connectivity (under 2 milliseconds between data centers).
  • Mandatory location field when purchasing services in Azure.
  • Not all services are available in all regions; check service availability.
  • Global Services: Services without specific regions (e.g., Azure Active Directory).
• Azure currently has over 50 regions globally, with new regions being announced regularly.
• Special regions include government regions and partner regions (e.g., China).

Availability Zones

• Definition: A regional feature that provides redundancy by grouping physical data centers.
• Purpose: Protect applications from data center failures.
• Characteristics:
  • Each zone has its own power, cooling, and networking infrastructure.
  • Zonal services allow deployment to specific availability zones.
  • Zone redundant services automatically replicate data across zones.
• Considerations:
  • Not all regions support availability zones (currently around 7).
  • At least three zones required for availability in supported regions.

Region Pairs

• Definition: Two regions that are paired for disaster recovery, located at least 300 miles apart.
• Purpose:
  • Protect against region-wide failures due to natural disasters.
  • Services can replicate data across paired regions.
  • Planned updates across paired regions to avoid downtime.
• Examples of Region Pairs:
  • East US paired with West US
  • North Europe paired with West Europe

Geographies

• Definition: Grouping of regions that meet data residency and compliance requirements.
• Characteristics:
  • Fault tolerant, protecting against region-wide failures.
  • Divided into areas (e.g., Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific).
  • Each region belongs to only one geography.

Additional Resources

• Navigate to the instructor's website for:
  • Episode-specific study guides
  • Cheat sheets
  • Practice tests
  • Expanded knowledge resources

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