A characteristic of a system which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period.
High Availability in cloud computing is the ability of a system or application to remain accessible and operational for a long period of time. It is a key characteristic of cloud services that ensures they can handle different load levels and recover quickly from any failures.
High Availability works by implementing redundant resources and failover procedures to ensure continuous operation and minimize the impact of failures.
An e-commerce website that operates 24/7 needs to ensure that its customers can make purchases at any time. To achieve high availability, the website might be hosted on multiple servers in different regions. If one server goes down, the traffic is automatically redirected to another server, ensuring that the website remains operational and customers can continue shopping.