Merge pull request #299546 from anaharris-ms/reliability-topology-considerations

[WIP] Reliability - Regions overview - New choosing regions section

Author: prmerger-automator[bot]

articles/reliability/regions-overview.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ author: anaharris-ms
 ms.service: azure
 ms.subservice: azure-reliability
 ms.topic: conceptual
-ms.date: 03/07/2025
+ms.date: 07/03/2025
 ms.author: anaharris
 ms.custom: subject-reliability, ai-video-concept
 ---
@@ -29,16 +29,34 @@ Every region is contained within a single *geography* that serves as a fixed dat
 > [!NOTE]
 > Most regions are available to all Azure customers. However, some regions belong to *sovereign cloud* geographies, which are available to some customers in specific geographic areas with stringent data residency regulations. Sovereign cloud regions work the same way as other regions, however they're often limited in the services and features of services that they provide. For more examples of limited service availability in sovereign cloud regions, see [Compare Azure Government and global Azure](/azure/azure-government/compare-azure-government-global-azure)) or [Availability of services for Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet](/azure/reliability/sovereign-cloud-china).
 
+
 ## List of regions
 
 For a list of Azure regions, see [List of Azure regions](./regions-list.md). If you want more details on regions, including data residency and regulatory compliance, see the [Microsoft Datacenters Map](https://datacenters.microsoft.com/globe/explore/).
 
+## Choosing Azure regions
+
+When you design a solution, you need to choose the Azure regions that you want to use. The regions you choose can affect the resiliency of your solution, as well as many other aspects of your solution.
+
+When you select regions, consider the following factors:
+
+- **Latency**. Select regions that are geographically close to your users to reduce latency. For example, if your users are in the United States, you might select a region in the United States or Canada.
+- **Availability zones**. Select regions that support availability zones to provide redundancy and fault isolation. Make sure that you spread your resources across multiple availability zones in the region. 
+- **Data residency:** Ensure that any regions you select are within a data residency boundary that your organization requires.
+
+
+
+For more detailed information on how to select regions, see [Select Azure regions](/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/ready/azure-setup-guide/regions).
+
+
 ## Regional resiliency options
 
+
 While all Azure regions provide high-quality services such as data residency and latency optimization, they can differ in the types of resiliency options they support. 
 
 This section summarizes the two resiliency options that may or may not be available in the regions you choose.
 
+
 ### Availability zones
 
 Many Azure regions provide availability zones. Availability zones are independent sets of datacenters that contain isolated power, cooling, and network connections. Availability zones are physically located close enough together to provide a low-latency network, but far enough apart to provide fault isolation from such things as storms and isolated power outages. Most Azure services provide built-in support for availability zones and you can decide how to use them to meet your needs. When you design an Azure solution, you should use availability zones to provide redundancy and fault isolation.
@@ -65,6 +83,7 @@ If you're using multiple regions together, you need to consider tradeoffs betwee
 
 - **Data residency:** Ensure that any regions you select are within a data residency boundary that your organization requires.
 
+
 ## Nonregional services
 
 Most Azure services are deployed to a specific region. However, there are some services that aren't tied to a single Azure region. It's important to recognize how *nonregional* services operate in the case of a regional failure, and to take them into account when you design your solutions and business continuity plan.