--- title: "How to configure the OVHcloud Load Balancer in multiple zones" description: "The OVHcloud Load Balancer is a critical component for distributing network traffic across your infrastructure. To ensure the highest level of service and optim" url: https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/network/load-balancer/configure-multi-zone lang: en --- > For AI agents: the complete documentation index is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms.txt, the full documentation bundle is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms-full.txt. # How to configure the OVHcloud Load Balancer in multiple zones The OVHcloud Load Balancer is a critical component for distributing network traffic across your infrastructure. To ensure the highest level of service and optimal user experience, it is essential to deploy your Load Balancer across multiple availability zones (AZ). When subscribing to an OVHcloud Load Balancer service, **you may choose one or more availability zones** in which the service will be located. You can also **order additional zones** for an existing service. Configuring your OVHcloud Load Balancer in multiple availability zones will help you **increase the reliability** of your Load Balancer service in case a zone is unavailable, or **minimize latency** for your users by directing the traffic to the service nearest to them. **Note:** Due to technical restrictions, when configuring an OVHcloud Load Balancer with two zones, if one is located in an APAC region and the other is not, traffic will be preferentially routed through the non-APAC zone first, even when the Load Balancer service is unavailable in that zone. This behavior is specific to cross-continent setups involving APAC zones. Therefore, we do not recommend configuring your Load Balancer in this manner. You may find a list of OVHcloud regions on [our website](https://us.ovhcloud.com/about/global-infrastructure/locations/).   ## Requirements - An [OVHcloud Load Balancer](https://us.ovhcloud.com/network/load-balancer/) service - Access to the [OVHcloud Control Panel](https://manager.us.ovhcloud.com/)   ## Introduction to availability zones ### Multi-region configuration Load balancing across multiple regions offers **maximum disaster recovery against widespread regional outages** and allows for worldwide entry points that significantly **reduce latency** by routing users to the **nearest server**. Most regions only have one availability zone, which means that working with several zones usually involves working with several regions. By leveraging an **Anycast network**, the OVHcloud Load Balancer can redirect requests coming from a specific region to the geographically nearest backend servers. To achieve this, you need to specify a frontend in each zone that uses a cluster in the same zone. This will allow you to declare backend servers in different clusters per zone and to control which backend servers are used in which zone. _Diagram representing a load balancer distributing traffic across two regions_ For example, if you have backend servers in the Vint Hill (VIN) and Hillsboro (HIL) regions, you can order a Load Balancer service in the `VIN` and `HIL` zones and configure: - A frontend in the VIN zone with a default cluster in the VIN zone, which contains servers in the Vint Hill datacenter. - A frontend in the HIL zone with a default cluster in the HIL zone that contains servers in the Hillsboro datacenter.   ## Instructions ### Add a zone #### OVHcloud Control Panel #### From the OVHcloud Control Panel You can order an additional zone from the [OVHcloud Control Panel](https://manager.us.ovhcloud.com/). In the `Network` section, under `Network services`, click on `Load Balancer`. Select your Load Balancer, then in the `Home` tab and the **Configuration** panel, next to **Availability zones**, click the _more options_ `...` and select `Add`. Then select the zone(s) you wish to order and click `Add`. From here, you will be redirected to our website to pay for your order. ##### OVHcloud API #### From the API 1. To order a zone via the API, you must first create a cart: `POST /order/cart` 2. Please note the cart number ("cart"), which will be needed later in the process. Then assign the cart to your customer account: `POST /order/cart/{cartId}/assign` 3. You can list the options available on your Load Balancer service: `GET /order/cartServiceOption/ipLoadbalancing/{serviceName}` 4. When you have found the option corresponding to the desired area, you can add it to your shopping cart ("cart") using the following call: `POST /order/cartServiceOption/ipLoadbalancing/{serviceName}` 5. Validate your cart ("cart"): `POST /order/cart/{cartId}/checkout` 6. Pay for the order you just generated: `POST /me/order/{orderId}/pay`   ### Configure your frontend Once your zone order is finalized, you can add it to your Load Balancer from the OVHcloud Control Panel. Select the Load Balancer you wish to modify, then create a new frontend, or edit an existing one, via the `Frontends` tab. In the `Datacenter` field, choose the zone you wish to associate with your frontend. If you want to use multiple zones, you can choose the special `ALL` zone. This special zone will allow you to deploy the same configuration on all zones subscribed to your Load Balancer service, which spares you from having to duplicate the configuration for all zones. Once the frontend is configured, click `Add` or `Modify` depending on whether you are configuring a new frontend or an existing one. Don't forget to deploy the configuration. To do this, click `Apply configuration` in the reminder banner stating that the configuration is not applied.   ## Go further Browse all the [Load Balancer guides](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/network/load-balancer/landing-page-load-balancer.md). Browse the rest of the [OVHcloud US documentation](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/index.md) for guides on our other products and services. Learn more about [Load Balancer](https://us.ovhcloud.com/network/load-balancer/) on the OVHcloud US website.