MTN Cloud: Region & Availability Zones Overview
🗺️ Regional Structure: Nigeria South
MTN Cloud's Nigeria South Region forms the backbone of its cloud service delivery across West Africa. Built for resilience, compliance, and performance, the region includes multiple Availability Zones (AZs) strategically distributed across Lagos. Each AZ is a physically and logically independent site with high-speed fiber interconnectivity.
🧭 Availability Zones (AZs) and Fault Domain Architecture
Each Availability Zone consists of three (3) independent fault domains (rack-level zones). These are physically isolated with independent:
- Power supply and backup systems
- Cooling infrastructure
- Network routing paths
This design ensures that failures affecting one rack do not impact workloads distributed across other racks in the same AZ.
MTN Cloud's current AZ layout is as follows:
Lagos AZ 1 – Lagos Island
- Status: Live
- Location: Lagos Island
- Infrastructure: Redundant power/fiber
- Rack Fault Tolerance: ✅ 3 Independent Racks
Lagos AZ 2 – Lagos Island
- Status: Live
- Location: Lagos Island
- Infrastructure: Redundant power/fiber
- Rack Fault Tolerance: ✅ 3 Independent Racks
Lagos AZ 3 – Lagos Mainland (In Progress)
- Status: In Progress
- Location: Lagos Mainland
- Infrastructure: MTN-owned with scalable rack design
- Planned Rack Fault Tolerance: ✅ 3 Independent Racks
⚙️ Unlocking Fault Tolerance with Scale Sets
To fully benefit from the 3-rack fault domain architecture, customers must configure their workloads using VM Scale Sets or orchestrated workload distribution tools. This ensures:
✅ Intelligent Spread Across Racks:
VM Scale Sets automatically distribute virtual machines across the 3 available racks in the AZ. This:
- Reduces risk of rack-level failure impacting your entire workload
- Improves service availability and uptime
- Aligns with cloud-native design principles
🔁Redundancy & High Availability: Rack + AZ Layer
| Layer | MTN Cloud Design |
|---|---|
| Rack-Level Redundancy | 3 isolated fault domains (racks) per AZ |
| AZ-Level Redundancy | Deploy across AZ1, AZ2, and (soon) AZ3 |
| Power/Cooling | Independent per rack + failover UPS + generators |
| Network Redundancy | Dual-path MTN fiber mesh |
| Storage Resilience | Optional replication across fault domains and AZs |
🧠Performance, Latency & Connectivity
- Intra-AZ (across racks):<1ms latency
- AZ1 ↔ AZ2 (Island): ~2–3ms
- AZ1/AZ2 ↔ AZ3 (Mainland): ~3–5ms
- Peering with IXPs and Undersea Cables: Enabled via Lagos landing stations
🔒Compliance & Data Sovereignty
MTN Cloud infrastructure ensures:
- 100% Nigeria Data Residency
- Full compliance with NDPR, NITDA, and CBN guidelines
- Physical isolation per fault domain and AZ for enhanced audit readiness
✅ Use Case Examples
| Use Case | Recommended Setup |
|---|---|
| High Uptime Web App | Deploy VMs using Scale Sets in AZ1 or AZ2 |
| DR Strategy | Primary in AZ1, DR in AZ2 or AZ3 |
| Regulated Government Workloads | AZ3 (Mainland) with rack-distributed nodes |
| Stateful Apps (e.g., DBs) | HA cluster across fault domains in same AZ |
| SaaS/Startups | Cost-optimized deployment using AZ + Scale Sets |
🧰 Feature Availability Matrix
| Service Category | Lagos AZ 1 | Lagos AZ 2 | Lagos AZ 3 (In Progress) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compute (VMs, Scale Sets) | ✅ | ✅ | 🔄 Planned |
| Object & Block Storage | ✅ | ✅ | 🔄 Planned |
| Load Balancers | ✅ | ✅ | 🔄 Planned |
| DRaaS / Backup | 🟡 * | 🟡 * | 🔄 Planned |
* Engage MTN Customer Account for activation process
📣 Important Customer Action
To activate MTN Cloud's built-in fault tolerance, always deploy critical applications using VM Scale Sets or explicitly distribute workloads across multiple fault domains.
For help enabling Scale Sets or HA mode, contact MTN Cloud Support.
📞Support & Architecture Planning
MTN Cloud experts can assist you with:
- Designing highly available cloud architecture
- Enabling fault-domain-aware provisioning
- Configuring VM Scale Sets and cluster deployments
- Migrating applications from legacy infrastructure