An Availability Zone is a distinct, physically isolated data center location within a cloud provider's geographic region. Each zone operates independently with its own power supply, cooling systems, and network connectivity, ensuring that failures in one zone do not cascade to others. Major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud use this architecture to enable customers to build highly available and fault-tolerant applications.

From a cybersecurity and infrastructure resilience perspective, distributing resources across multiple Availability Zones is a critical strategy for maintaining service continuity. This approach protects against localized disasters, hardware failures, and outages that could otherwise disrupt business operations. The zones are connected through low-latency, high-bandwidth networks that enable seamless data replication and automatic failover, making them essential for organizations that require continuous uptime and robust disaster recovery capabilities.