title: What is the meaning of K and T in CosmosDB's single region database/account with a Bounded Staleness consistency?
body: <p>As stated in the title, I'm confused as to why a distributed database like cosmosdb requires a &quot;staleness&quot; setting for single region accounts. According to <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/consistency-levels#bounded-staleness-consistency" rel="nofollow noreferrer">documentation</a>:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>For a single region account, the minimum value of K and T is 10 write operations or 5 seconds. For multi-region accounts the minimum value of K and T is 100,000 write operations or 300 seconds.</p>
  <p>...</p>
  <p>Consistency for clients in the same region for an account with single write region = Strong</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>I understand that for a multi-region database, reads in another region will lag behind by K operations or T seconds, but what does it mean for a single region account? And why does K and T have different minimum values for multi-region and single region databases/accounts?</p>
  <p>From my understanding, a single region database with Bounded Staleness consistency is exactly equivalent to a single region database with Strong consistency. What is the need for K and T variables in a single region environment when the very concept of K and T is based on multi-region?</p>