Azure global infrastructure (regions, availability zones) - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Azure Global Infrastructure: Regions and Availability Zones

📖 Scenario: You are working for a company that wants to deploy its application on Microsoft Azure. To ensure the application is reliable and available even if one data center has issues, you need to understand Azure's global infrastructure, including regions and availability zones.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple Azure resource configuration that defines a list of Azure regions and their availability zones. This will help you understand how Azure organizes its data centers globally and how to plan for high availability.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called azure_regions with three Azure regions as keys and their availability zones as lists of integers.

Create a variable called selected_region and set it to one of the regions in azure_regions.

Write a loop using for zone in azure_regions[selected_region] to list all availability zones in the selected region.

Add a final configuration line that sets a variable deployment_zones equal to the list of availability zones for the selected_region.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Understanding Azure regions and availability zones helps you design applications that stay online even if one data center fails.

💼 Career

Cloud architects and engineers use this knowledge to plan where and how to deploy resources for reliability and performance.

1

Create the Azure regions dictionary

Create a dictionary called azure_regions with these exact entries: 'eastus': [1, 2, 3], 'westeurope': [1, 2, 3], and 'southeastasia': [1, 2, 3].

Azure

# Create the azure_regions dictionary with specified regions and zones
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Think of azure_regions as a map where each region points to a list of its availability zones.

2

Select a region for deployment

Create a variable called selected_region and set it to the string 'eastus'.

Azure

azure_regions = {
    'eastus': [1, 2, 3],
    'westeurope': [1, 2, 3],
    'southeastasia': [1, 2, 3]
}
# Set selected_region to 'eastus'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Choose one region from the dictionary keys exactly as shown.

3

List availability zones in the selected region

Write a for loop using for zone in azure_regions[selected_region] to iterate over the availability zones of the selected_region. Inside the loop, add a comment # Access zone to indicate you are processing each zone.

Azure

azure_regions = {
    'eastus': [1, 2, 3],
    'westeurope': [1, 2, 3],
    'southeastasia': [1, 2, 3]
}
selected_region = 'eastus'
# Loop over availability zones in selected_region
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the exact loop header for zone in azure_regions[selected_region]: and add a comment inside.

4

Set deployment zones variable

Add a line that creates a variable called deployment_zones and sets it equal to the list of availability zones for the selected_region from the azure_regions dictionary.

Azure

azure_regions = {
    'eastus': [1, 2, 3],
    'westeurope': [1, 2, 3],
    'southeastasia': [1, 2, 3]
}
selected_region = 'eastus'
for zone in azure_regions[selected_region]:
    # Access zone
# Set deployment_zones to the zones of selected_region
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign deployment_zones directly from the dictionary using the selected_region key.