The nearest cloud region is not always the best, and the cheapest is not genuinely economical if it increases latency or makes recovery harder. The choice needs to connect technical requirements with operational risk.
Map users and dependencies
Identify where customers, staff, databases, APIs and partners are located. The entire data journey determines latency, not just the distance from the end user.
Check data location requirements
Record contractual, regulatory and internal obligations. Distinguish where primary data, backups, logs and support artifacts are stored.
Compare actual service availability
Not every version, capability or availability zone is offered everywhere. Confirm quotas, roadmaps and restrictions before designing around a service.
Plan for a regional failure
Decide how much downtime and data loss are acceptable. Multi-region architecture brings costs and complexity that need to be justified.
Calculate the full cost of moving data
Include egress, replication, monitoring, support and the human work of operating the system. Compute pricing is only one part of the decision.
This framework is an original editorial methodology developed by DigitalNow.