What is a "Pod"?

Zendesk has data centers throughout the globe to meet the performance and data needs of our customers. Each of these data centers contains one or more "Pods". Your Zendesk account shares common network and system resources with other Zendesk customers in a given Pod.

You can think of a Pod as a high-rise office building with one Zendesk account occupying each floor. Just as the high-rise provides shared infrastructure like security, electricity, plumbing, and air conditioning for each floor of the building, a Pod provides the security, network, application, and database services shared by multiple Zendesk accounts on that Pod.

This Pod architecture provides maximum performance and stability (service incidents affecting one Pod will not affect customers in other Pods) with the added benefits of faster account provisioning and improved scalability.  You can learn more details about Zendesk's technical architecture and Pods in the Help Center article Zendesk scalability and performance: Technical architecture.

How do I learn what Pod I am on?

You can confirm your Zendesk account's Pod by clicking the cog icon in your Zendesk.  Your Pod is displayed in the upper right corner of the Admin Home page.

 Can I specify the Pod my Zendesk is hosted on?

In most cases, the Pod you are hosted in is located in the data center physically closest to your location at signup. However, we do occasionally need to "load balance" certain accounts to other Pods to improve performance, as needed. If you do wish to ensure that your data stays in a certain location, please consider our Data Center Location Add-on. Select from US-only and EU-only for the processing and storage of your data.