Partition abstraction in distributed computing systems

Techniques of partition abstraction in a wide area network are disclosed herein. In one example, a method includes receiving, at a partition of the wide area network, a request to perform a computing task with a computing resource in the wide area network, the computing resource having a resource identifier. In response to receiving the request, the method also includes determining whether the resource identifier of the computing resource includes a partition embedded globally unique identifier (PEGUID) and in response to determining that the resource identifier includes a PEGUID, extracting the PEGUID from the resource identifier and decoding the PEGUID to identify a partition corresponding to the computing resource.