Module 1 Beginner AZ-900 12 min read

Azure Global Infrastructure

Learn how Microsoft's massive worldwide network of datacenters is organised — regions, availability zones, region pairs, and how to pick the right location for your workloads.

What you'll learn: What Azure regions are · Availability Zones · Region pairs · Geographies · Azure regions in India · How to choose the right region · AZ-900 exam tips

In this tutorial

Azure regions

Availability Zones

Region pairs

Azure geographies

Azure regions in India

How to choose the right region

AZ-900 exam tips

Azure regions

An Azure region is a geographical area that contains one or more physical datacenters. Each datacenter is connected to the others within the region through a dedicated low-latency network. Azure currently operates in 60+ regions across the globe — more than any other cloud provider.

When you create any Azure resource — a virtual machine, a storage account, a database — you choose which region it lives in. Placing resources close to your users reduces latency and improves performance.

        # List all available Azure regions using Azure CLI

        az account list-locations \

          --output table

        # Example output:

        Name              DisplayName         Latitude  Longitude

        centralindia      Central India        18.5822   73.9197

        southindia        South India         12.9822   80.1636

        westindia         West India          19.088    72.868

        eastus            East US             37.3719   -79.8164

Availability Zones

Within a region, Azure has Availability Zones (AZs). These are physically separate datacenters within the same region — each with their own independent power supply, cooling, and networking.

If one zone goes down due to a power outage or hardware failure, the other zones keep running. This protects your applications from datacenter-level failures and is key to achieving high availability.

Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3 — Each region typically has 3 availability zones, physically separated by several kilometres but connected through high-speed fibre.

Zone-redundant services — Some Azure services automatically replicate across zones. Example: Azure SQL Database with zone redundancy enabled.

Zonal services — Some services let you pin resources to a specific zone. Example: placing a Virtual Machine in Zone 1 specifically.

Important: Not all Azure regions support Availability Zones. Always check if your chosen region supports AZs before designing a high-availability solution.

Region pairs

Every Azure region is paired with another region within the same geography, at least 300 miles (480 km) away. This is called a region pair. If a major disaster affects one region, Azure automatically fails over to its paired region.

Automatic failover — Azure prioritises restoring at least one region in each pair during a large-scale outage.

Sequential updates — Azure never updates both regions in a pair at the same time, reducing the risk of downtime during planned maintenance.

Data residency — Data always stays within the same geography (e.g., India), ensuring compliance with local data residency regulations.

Azure geographies

A geography is a discrete market, typically containing two or more regions, that preserves data residency and compliance boundaries. Azure geographies allow customers with specific data-residency and compliance needs to keep their data close.

        Azure Geographies (examples):

        India    → Central India · South India · West India

        US       → East US · West US · Central US · and more

        Europe   → North Europe · West Europe · UK South

        Asia Pac → Southeast Asia · East Asia · Japan East

        Middle East→ UAE North · Qatar Central

Azure regions in India

Azure has three dedicated regions in India, making it one of the most well-covered cloud platforms for Indian businesses and developers.

Central India — Pune
The primary region for most Indian workloads. Supports Availability Zones. Best for general-purpose applications, web hosting, and databases. Region pair: South India

South India — Chennai
Paired with Central India for disaster recovery. Ideal for backup and replication workloads. Region pair: Central India

West India — Mumbai
Great for low-latency applications serving users in western India and financial workloads. Region pair: South India

💡 Tip for Indian developers: Always use Central India (Pune) as your primary region. It's the most feature-complete Indian region and supports the widest range of Azure services including Availability Zones.

How to choose the right region

Proximity to users — Choose a region closest to your end users to minimise latency. If your users are in India, use Central India or South India.

Service availability — Not all Azure services are available in every region. Always check the Azure products by region page before designing your solution.

Compliance & data residency — Some industries (healthcare, finance, government) require data to stay within a specific country. Choose a region that meets those requirements.

Pricing — Azure pricing varies slightly by region. Running the same VM in East US may cost differently than in Central India. Always compare costs before deploying.

Availability Zones support — If high availability is a requirement, confirm your chosen region supports Availability Zones.

AZ-900 exam tips

✅ Know the difference between a Region, Availability Zone, and Geography
✅ Remember Azure has 60+ regions — more than any other cloud provider
✅ Understand that Availability Zones protect against datacenter-level failures
✅ Know that region pairs are at least 300 miles apart
✅ Remember India has 3 Azure regions — Pune, Chennai, Mumbai
✅ Region pairs ensure data residency stays within the same geography