Multi-Region Zone Config Extensions

Multi-Region Zone Config Extensions are a customization tool for advanced users to persistently modify the configuration generated by the standard multi-region SQL abstractions for a region, a super region, or a table locality. They are controlled using the ALTER DATABASE ... ALTER LOCALITY statement. Use cases for Zone Config Extensions include:

• Failover behavior
• Regions with stale read access
• Quorum placement
• Data domiciling

We strongly recommend that most users use the default multi-region SQL abstractions as much as possible. However, if you need additional customizations, using Zone Config Extensions is better than writing your own low-level zone configs for the following reasons:

• Zone Config Extensions are persistent and kept up-to-date. Unlike raw zone config modification, which must be fully overwritten on each multi-region configuration change in order to take effect, Zone Config Extensions stay in place alongside the high-level multi-region SQL configuration. This is true even if you add new tables or regions, or if a table’s locality is changed.
• They are validated against the configs already in place in a multi-region cluster. Unlike hand-written zone configs, they are designed to work properly with the configuration generated by the higher-level multi-region SQL statements. Specifically, this means:
  • REGIONAL extensions don’t set lease preferences.
  • REGIONAL IN extensions don’t set lease preferences, nor do they set replica constraints or voter constraints that would conflict with the original home region.
  • SUPER REGION extensions don’t set lease preferences. Region constraints in their replica constraints and voter constraints can reference only regions that belong to the super region.
  • Zone Config Extensions don’t change the survival goals for the database or its super regions.
  • Zone Config Extensions can set num_replicas as low as num_voters, which removes non-voting replicas and can reduce infrastructure costs while preserving the applicable survival goal.
• They are composable. You can use Zone Config Extensions to build up approximations of many higher-level features. For an example, see Failover regions.
• They can be region or super-region scoped. A region extension updates the zone configurations of REGIONAL BY TABLE tables and REGIONAL BY ROW partitions associated with that region. A super-region extension updates those objects when their home region belongs to the super region. Super-region extensions don’t apply to GLOBAL tables.
• They are locality scoped. You can specify a Zone Config Extension that only applies to tables with certain localities. For example, to apply a Zone Config Extension to tables with the GLOBAL locality, use ALTER DATABASE ... ALTER LOCALITY GLOBAL ....

For instructions showing how to use Zone Config Extensions, see Use Zone Config Extensions. When scopes overlap, CockroachDB applies REGIONAL extensions first, SUPER REGION extensions second, and REGIONAL IN extensions last. More-specific settings therefore override the same fields from less-specific extensions.

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See also

• Use Zone Config Extensions
• ALTER DATABASE ... ALTER LOCALITY
• Multi-Region Capabilities Overview
• Data Domiciling
• PLACEMENT RESTRICTED
• SET LOCALITY
• ADD REGION
• SET PRIMARY REGION
• Troubleshoot Replication Zones