Network distance imposes a lower bound on latency. Serving a user from a nearby region reduces round-trip time, but data may still need to travel to a distant primary database. Put latency-sensitive stateless compute near users when it helps, and decide deliberately where authoritative data lives.

Edge computing runs selected logic close to users, such as request routing, lightweight personalization, token checks, or content transformation. Edge runtimes may have limited execution time, storage, and networking capabilities. Do not move stateful business logic to the edge without understanding consistency and deployment constraints.

Locality can conflict with centralized correctness. A globally shared inventory item may require coordination across regions, while a regional catalog page can often tolerate replication lag. Classify data by locality and correctness requirements before selecting an active-active design.