A capability is provided for improving service availability experienced by a user requesting access to a service via a user device, where the service has multiple service instances available from multiple data centers. A set of servicing data centers is selected for the user device. The set of servicing data centers is selected from a set of candidate data centers. The set of servicing data centers is selected from the set of candidate data centers in a manner for maximizing the independence/orthogonality of the network paths between the user device and the servicing data centers. The set of servicing data centers includes two or more of the candidate data centers from which the user device may access the service, thereby providing the user device with a primary service instance and one or more backup service instances which may be used to access the service.