What is multi-region application architecture?
Multi-region application architecture ensures we add a secondary region or more than one region with a serverless active/passive workload. An asynchronous replication takes over when a disaster tends to occur. In this scenario, an application fail-over is executed to another region. As more cloud regions are being added and the need for application uptime increases, it becomes critical for startups to look for an alternate region that provides application redundancy. With growing startups, there is an urgent need to understand the benefits of multi-region applications.
A SaaS application’s success depends on the maximum usage of the application with minimum technical glitches. The effectiveness of these applications requires customer-friendly access from web portals and mobile interfaces. With a multiple regional approaches, applications can be rendered from the region nearby rather than access points at a central location. Global startups are seeking to maximize resource optimization using a multi-cloud approach.
Why start-ups choose a multi-region application architecture
Startups tend to choose cloud partners, well-versed with compliance and infrastructure for issues linked with data storage, data security, and the startups’ sovereignty. If there is freedom to choose different cloud providers for different modules of the architecture, it gives more freedom to choose the best possible vendor for each of the modules. Some startups require dynamic functionalities across clouds along with multi-regions, which offers a conducive environment to products.
Let’s dive into the various reasons, why a startup should consider a multi-region approach at an early stage itself.
Need for Fault tolerance in multi-region application
Fault tolerance becomes a complex challenge for application developers. This also means more application, data, and network redundancies are added. While applications that are not multi-region based tend to increase the network latency with routing policies and choice of regions. The multi-region applications create a resilient region and security by restricting intrusion from unauthorized persons. The traffic generated from the different areas can be severed from the region of origin. Therefore, multi-region architecture better serves the needs of startups.
Reduced latency for customers across regions
Generally, startups look at a specific region to build a customer base from that region. While designing the infrastructure, the regions associated with the customer base or the geographical radius of customers become essential. In this case, startups with operations located in urban centers have diverse audiences to serve across different geographies. The latency problem is more prominent in startups with a global presence extending the need to use other cloud regions. The deployment of an application in such a case will not be restricted to a single area. Thus, the benefit of choosing a multi-region comes into play. In latency-based routing, application latencies can be below 100 milliseconds, add a multi-regional approach and this can help applications across regions.
Need to increase the user base
Startups need to quickly grow their user base to increase service profitability. The requirement of adding users outside the geographic extent of one country is a prerequisite before moving towards a multi-region application platform. The issues in the user access to the services of startups due to increased latency reduced the growth in the user base. Therefore, the need to adopt a multi-region platform comes when a demand is created for the users. Cloud-based services such as Nife help startups make use of multiple regions to excel and grow their business.
Adding flexibility in modular application architecture
The use of multi-region architecture eventually offers a greater degree of flexibility. This means the startups could easily roll out different versions of services. Hence, once a startup selects a multi-region application, three specific advantages are offered.
- Schematic layout of the database: this is the central aspect of using a multi-region application which means design freedom for the startups and their subsidiary products.
- Cloud deployments: when working with multi-region environments, the startups can quickly deploy the database and applications using docker and Kubernetes. Therefore, multi-region application modeling helps increase scalability.
- Application logic: While startups use a time-sensitive expansion policy, working on a multi-region application renders high functionality.
Adherence to different data privacy regulations
Although data is a crucial component of any global IT service, it is equally one of the most vulnerable elements. Therefore, startups must also adhere to various global and national data privacy laws. The startups need to be transparent about the type of data collected from users, the storage medium, and its life. The multi-region deployment of an application will benefit from the cloud system’s self-accountability according to region-specific privacy regulations. While data can be retained in a local region, the other application components can be hosted in other regions.
Continuous Resilience
Data safety and disaster recovery are key factors of a business continuity plan. Any critical business needs to visualize the risk and plan accordingly to safeguard future interests. With resilience in built and automatic fail-overs configured, a multi-region application can mutually be configured for future risks and simultaneously reinforce the business.
Summary
While startups concentrate on creating and validating a business or a service in the most innovative manner. For hardcore tech startups, the focus is on the core of the technology. To ensure that we can avoid the external network or environmental effects while designing the infrastructure or application, we, business owners should consider multi-region application architecture. Multi-region, along with the serverless nature of applications, can easily be managed by a deployment platform hence improving the manageability of the applications across any cloud or on-premises infrastructure.
