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World desk6 min

How to Keep AI Workloads Running When a Cloud Region Is Unavailable

Regional resilience for AI requires more than a second copy of code. Set recovery targets, prepare another region for inference and jobs, protect data and checkpoints, and test the full failover path.
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To keep AI workloads running through a cloud-region outage, prepare a recovery environment in another region, protect the data and model assets it needs, and configure a way to redirect inference traffic or restart jobs there. First set a recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) for each workload. Then choose a recovery design, validate the alternate region’s dependencies and capacity, and test the complete failover path. A second copy of application code—or a zonally resilient service in the original region—is not, by itself, regional disaster recovery.

What a regional outage does—and does not—mean

Cloud resilience has different failure scopes. A zonal design can withstand the loss of a zone within a region, while still depending on that region being available. Regional recovery requires the application and its dependencies to work from another region. Google Cloud’s infrastructure outage guidance distinguishes zonal, regional, and multi-regional resources and recommends planning across regions for regional failures.

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Managed AI services also have product-specific failure behavior. Google says Vertex AI online prediction and training are regional: online prediction does not automatically route regional-outage traffic elsewhere, and training jobs need to be directed to another available region. For GKE, regional clusters address zone failures within a region; regional-outage mitigation requires multiple regional clusters and a separately configured way to control traffic. These are Google-specific examples, not universal behavior for every cloud AI service.

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Set recovery targets before choosing an architecture

RTO is the intended time to restore service. RPO is the acceptable data-loss window, expressed as the recovery point to which data can be restored. Set targets separately for inference, training, and data: a customer-facing prediction API may need a short RTO, while a training run may be allowed to restart later if its latest checkpoint is recoverable.

Use the targets to compare readiness, recovery speed, cost, operational complexity, and the amount of work that must happen during an outage. Provider-published time ranges are planning examples, not guarantees for a particular workload.

Pattern What is ready before the outage Planning range and trade-off
Backup and restore Recoverable backups and application definitions are stored so infrastructure can be provisioned and data restored in the recovery region. AWS describes this as lower readiness with longer recovery: RPO in hours and RTO in 24 hours or less in its current Well-Architected guidance. Infrastructure as code can reduce setup work, but this is not a workload guarantee.
Pilot light Core infrastructure and replicated data are ready; much of the application compute remains inactive until needed. AWS gives illustrative bands of RPO in minutes and RTO in tens of minutes. Lower standing compute comes with activation, deployment, or scaling work during recovery; actual results depend on implementation.
Warm standby A reduced but functional system is already serving-ready in the recovery region and can be scaled up. AWS gives illustrative bands of RPO in seconds and RTO in minutes. The achieved recovery time depends on the implementation and available capacity.
Active-active Production is served from multiple regions at once. AWS describes RPO as near zero and RTO as potentially zero; Azure guidance describes active-active RTO as seconds to minutes. These are pattern-level planning descriptions, not measured results or commitments for an AI workload. This pattern needs adequate capacity in each region and careful handling of synchronized or conflicting writes; AWS characterizes it as the most complex and costly option.
Active-passive A secondary region is prepared to take over rather than routinely serving production at full capacity. Azure guidance describes active-passive recovery as typically taking minutes to tens of minutes, depending on scaling and traffic failover. The range is general vendor guidance, not a promise for an individual application.

These patterns are not a universal ranking. Compare them against your targets and verify whether the recovery path relies on control-plane actions, manual approval, or automated failover. An automated switch can shorten recovery only if the destination is provisioned, reachable, authorized, and able to carry the load.

Plan failover for the whole AI dependency chain

List every regional dependency that must work for a request or job to complete. For each one, record its failure scope, recovery method, owner, and the region where it will be available.

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  • Inference endpoint and traffic: Have an alternate endpoint or service in another region and a tested mechanism for directing requests to it. For Vertex AI, Google’s guidance specifically calls for multiple regions and traffic redirection after a regional outage.
  • Training and batch jobs: Decide whether an interrupted job will be restarted or resumed from a checkpoint, and make the required code, data, configuration, and checkpoints available in the recovery region. For Vertex AI, Google recommends using another available region for jobs after a regional failure; its guidance does not establish seamless resumption of a particular job at its last checkpoint.
  • Model artifacts, datasets, and metadata: Choose replication and backup mechanisms according to the RPO and consistency needs. Replication is not a substitute for point-in-time recovery: asynchronous replication can leave recent writes outside the recovery copy, and replication can also propagate deletion or corruption. Keep versioned or point-in-time recovery options appropriate to the data.
  • Containers and orchestration: If you run AI services on Kubernetes, prepare clusters in separate regions and configure how traffic reaches them. A regional GKE cluster is not a built-in multi-region recovery plan.
  • Network, identity, and configuration: Prepare the recovery region’s network paths, routing, access permissions, policies, and service configuration. Azure guidance calls for validating secondary-region connectivity and routing and checking that security rules allow failover traffic.
  • Capacity and service availability: Check that the target region supports the required model or service configuration, quota, and compute capacity. These vary by provider, service, region, and time, so verify them for the particular workload rather than assuming the primary region’s configuration can be duplicated on demand.

As one example of a narrowly scoped storage target, Google Cloud says its dual-region Cloud Storage turbo replication feature targets replication of 100% of newly written objects within 15 minutes. That is a target for that storage feature—not a general RPO guarantee for an AI application or all of its data.

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Use a runbook that covers both service failover and job recovery

  1. Define workload targets: Record RTO and RPO separately for inference, training, batch processing, and the data each depends on. Decide which functions must remain live and which can recover later.
  2. Map failure scopes: For each dependency, identify whether it is zonal, regional, multi-regional, or global. Check the relevant managed-service documentation for its regional-outage behavior.
  3. Choose and provision a recovery pattern: Prepare the alternate infrastructure and configuration using repeatable deployment methods. Document which steps are automated and which require an operator.
  4. Protect recoverable state: Replicate data and model assets to meet the intended RPO, and maintain backups or versioned recovery for incidents such as accidental deletion or corruption.
  5. Validate the destination: Check routing, credentials, network policy, service configuration, quota, and available capacity. Confirm that inference traffic can reach the alternate endpoint and that jobs can access their required inputs and checkpoints.
  6. Exercise and measure recovery: Simulate regional loss and data recovery, measure actual RTO and RPO, and update the runbook when a step takes longer than planned or fails. Google Cloud and AWS guidance both recommend regular testing.
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Test the failure modes that can invalidate a plan

A recovery design is only useful if its assumptions hold during an incident. Test the parts that are easy to overlook:

  • Requests actually move to the alternate region, and the endpoint there can handle the intended load.
  • Training and batch jobs can be submitted in the recovery region, with the expected behavior for interrupted work and checkpoints documented.
  • Restored or replicated data is usable by the application, and the recovery point meets the chosen RPO.
  • Credentials, routing, firewall or security rules, and service permissions work without relying on unavailable regional resources.
  • The surviving region has enough capacity for the load it is expected to absorb.
  • Operators can follow the runbook and determine when recovery is complete.

Google Cloud’s infrastructure outage guide was last reviewed on 2024-05-10. Cloud-service behavior, regional support, quotas, and capacity can change, so verify the current documentation and availability for the specific services and regions before relying on a design.

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