diff --git a/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/aws/aws.go b/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/aws/aws.go
index 3d32f5cdd99..df406e06450 100644
--- a/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/aws/aws.go
+++ b/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/aws/aws.go
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ import (
 	aws_credentials "k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/credentialprovider/aws"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/types"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/util/sets"
+	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/volume"
 )
 
 const ProviderName = "aws"
@@ -197,6 +198,7 @@ type EC2Metadata interface {
 type VolumeOptions struct {
 	CapacityGB int
 	Tags       map[string]string
+	PVCName    string
 }
 
 // Volumes is an interface for managing cloud-provisioned volumes
@@ -913,6 +915,49 @@ func (aws *AWSCloud) List(filter string) ([]string, error) {
 	return aws.getInstancesByRegex(filter)
 }
 
+// getAllZones retrieves  a list of all the zones in which nodes are running
+// It currently involves querying all instances
+func (c *AWSCloud) getAllZones() (sets.String, error) {
+	// We don't currently cache this; it is currently used only in volume
+	// creation which is expected to be a comparatively rare occurence.
+
+	// TODO: Caching / expose api.Nodes to the cloud provider?
+	// TODO: We could also query for subnets, I think
+
+	filters := []*ec2.Filter{newEc2Filter("instance-state-name", "running")}
+	filters = c.addFilters(filters)
+	request := &ec2.DescribeInstancesInput{
+		Filters: filters,
+	}
+
+	instances, err := c.ec2.DescribeInstances(request)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+	if len(instances) == 0 {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("no instances returned")
+	}
+
+	zones := sets.NewString()
+
+	for _, instance := range instances {
+		// Only return fully-ready instances when listing instances
+		// (vs a query by name, where we will return it if we find it)
+		if orEmpty(instance.State.Name) == "pending" {
+			glog.V(2).Infof("Skipping EC2 instance (pending): %s", *instance.InstanceId)
+			continue
+		}
+
+		if instance.Placement != nil {
+			zone := aws.StringValue(instance.Placement.AvailabilityZone)
+			zones.Insert(zone)
+		}
+	}
+
+	glog.V(2).Infof("Found instances in zones %s", zones)
+	return zones, nil
+}
+
 // GetZone implements Zones.GetZone
 func (c *AWSCloud) GetZone() (cloudprovider.Zone, error) {
 	return cloudprovider.Zone{
@@ -1383,11 +1428,14 @@ func (aws *AWSCloud) DetachDisk(diskName string, instanceName string) (string, e
 	return hostDevicePath, err
 }
 
-// Implements Volumes.CreateVolume
+// CreateDisk implements Volumes.CreateDisk
 func (s *AWSCloud) CreateDisk(volumeOptions *VolumeOptions) (string, error) {
-	// Default to creating in the current zone
-	// TODO: Spread across zones?
-	createAZ := s.selfAWSInstance.availabilityZone
+	allZones, err := s.getAllZones()
+	if err != nil {
+		return "", fmt.Errorf("error querying for all zones: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	createAZ := volume.ChooseZoneForVolume(allZones, volumeOptions.PVCName)
 
 	// TODO: Should we tag this with the cluster id (so it gets deleted when the cluster does?)
 	request := &ec2.CreateVolumeInput{}
diff --git a/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/gce/gce.go b/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/gce/gce.go
index 92d09ce13be..7352bd37bff 100644
--- a/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/gce/gce.go
+++ b/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/gce/gce.go
@@ -123,7 +123,9 @@ type Disks interface {
 
 	// GetAutoLabelsForPD returns labels to apply to PersistentVolume
 	// representing this PD, namely failure domain and zone.
-	GetAutoLabelsForPD(name string) (map[string]string, error)
+	// zone can be provided to specify the zone for the PD,
+	// if empty all managed zones will be searched.
+	GetAutoLabelsForPD(name string, zone string) (map[string]string, error)
 }
 
 func init() {
@@ -2069,6 +2071,48 @@ func (gce *GCECloud) List(filter string) ([]string, error) {
 	return instances, nil
 }
 
+// GetAllZones returns all the zones in which nodes are running
+func (gce *GCECloud) GetAllZones() (sets.String, error) {
+	// Fast-path for non-multizone
+	if len(gce.managedZones) == 1 {
+		return sets.NewString(gce.managedZones...), nil
+	}
+
+	// TODO: Caching, but this is currently only called when we are creating a volume,
+	// which is a relatively infrequent operation, and this is only # zones API calls
+	zones := sets.NewString()
+
+	// TODO: Parallelize, although O(zones) so not too bad (N <= 3 typically)
+	for _, zone := range gce.managedZones {
+		// We only retrieve one page in each zone - we only care about existence
+		listCall := gce.service.Instances.List(gce.projectID, zone)
+
+		// No filter: We assume that a zone is either used or unused
+		// We could only consider running nodes (like we do in List above),
+		// but probably if instances are starting we still want to consider them.
+		// I think we should wait until we have a reason to make the
+		// call one way or the other; we generally can't guarantee correct
+		// volume spreading if the set of zones is changing
+		// (and volume spreading is currently only a heuristic).
+		// Long term we want to replace GetAllZones (which primarily supports volume
+		// spreading) with a scheduler policy that is able to see the global state of
+		// volumes and the health of zones.
+
+		// Just a minimal set of fields - we only care about existence
+		listCall = listCall.Fields("items(name)")
+
+		res, err := listCall.Do()
+		if err != nil {
+			return nil, err
+		}
+		if len(res.Items) != 0 {
+			zones.Insert(zone)
+		}
+	}
+
+	return zones, nil
+}
+
 func getMetadataValue(metadata *compute.Metadata, key string) (string, bool) {
 	for _, item := range metadata.Items {
 		if item.Key == key {
@@ -2221,13 +2265,33 @@ func (gce *GCECloud) DeleteDisk(diskToDelete string) error {
 // Builds the labels that should be automatically added to a PersistentVolume backed by a GCE PD
 // Specifically, this builds FailureDomain (zone) and Region labels.
 // The PersistentVolumeLabel admission controller calls this and adds the labels when a PV is created.
-func (gce *GCECloud) GetAutoLabelsForPD(name string) (map[string]string, error) {
-	disk, err := gce.getDiskByNameUnknownZone(name)
-	if err != nil {
-		return nil, err
+// If zone is specified, the volume will only be found in the specified zone,
+// otherwise all managed zones will be searched.
+func (gce *GCECloud) GetAutoLabelsForPD(name string, zone string) (map[string]string, error) {
+	var disk *gceDisk
+	var err error
+	if zone == "" {
+		// We would like as far as possible to avoid this case,
+		// because GCE doesn't guarantee that volumes are uniquely named per region,
+		// just per zone.  However, creation of GCE PDs was originally done only
+		// by name, so we have to continue to support that.
+		// However, wherever possible the zone should be passed (and it is passed
+		// for most cases that we can control, e.g. dynamic volume provisioning)
+		disk, err = gce.getDiskByNameUnknownZone(name)
+		if err != nil {
+			return nil, err
+		}
+		zone = disk.Zone
+	} else {
+		// We could assume the disks exists; we have all the information we need
+		// However it is more consistent to ensure the disk exists,
+		// and in future we may gather addition information (e.g. disk type, IOPS etc)
+		disk, err = gce.getDiskByName(name, zone)
+		if err != nil {
+			return nil, err
+		}
 	}
 
-	zone := disk.Zone
 	region, err := GetGCERegion(zone)
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
diff --git a/pkg/controller/persistentvolume/controller.go b/pkg/controller/persistentvolume/controller.go
index e115fcba66f..69e1ba54d96 100644
--- a/pkg/controller/persistentvolume/controller.go
+++ b/pkg/controller/persistentvolume/controller.go
@@ -1131,6 +1131,7 @@ func (ctrl *PersistentVolumeController) provisionClaimOperation(claimObj interfa
 		CloudTags:                     &tags,
 		ClusterName:                   ctrl.clusterName,
 		PVName:                        pvName,
+		PVCName:                       claim.Name,
 	}
 
 	// Provision the volume
diff --git a/pkg/volume/aws_ebs/aws_util.go b/pkg/volume/aws_ebs/aws_util.go
index fba3f007038..c3097f31c0d 100644
--- a/pkg/volume/aws_ebs/aws_util.go
+++ b/pkg/volume/aws_ebs/aws_util.go
@@ -82,6 +82,7 @@ func (util *AWSDiskUtil) CreateVolume(c *awsElasticBlockStoreProvisioner) (strin
 	volumeOptions := &aws.VolumeOptions{
 		CapacityGB: requestGB,
 		Tags:       tags,
+		PVCName:    c.options.PVCName,
 	}
 
 	name, err := cloud.CreateDisk(volumeOptions)
diff --git a/pkg/volume/gce_pd/attacher_test.go b/pkg/volume/gce_pd/attacher_test.go
index 85ca7a78bc7..c3c4b596b4f 100644
--- a/pkg/volume/gce_pd/attacher_test.go
+++ b/pkg/volume/gce_pd/attacher_test.go
@@ -359,6 +359,6 @@ func (testcase *testcase) DeleteDisk(diskToDelete string) error {
 	return errors.New("Not implemented")
 }
 
-func (testcase *testcase) GetAutoLabelsForPD(name string) (map[string]string, error) {
+func (testcase *testcase) GetAutoLabelsForPD(name string, zone string) (map[string]string, error) {
 	return map[string]string{}, errors.New("Not implemented")
 }
diff --git a/pkg/volume/gce_pd/gce_util.go b/pkg/volume/gce_pd/gce_util.go
index bb8b31da4bd..717b9b0df10 100644
--- a/pkg/volume/gce_pd/gce_util.go
+++ b/pkg/volume/gce_pd/gce_util.go
@@ -82,20 +82,22 @@ func (gceutil *GCEDiskUtil) CreateVolume(c *gcePersistentDiskProvisioner) (strin
 
 	// The disk will be created in the zone in which this code is currently running
 	// TODO: We should support auto-provisioning volumes in multiple/specified zones
-	zone, err := cloud.GetZone()
+	zones, err := cloud.GetAllZones()
 	if err != nil {
 		glog.V(2).Infof("error getting zone information from GCE: %v", err)
 		return "", 0, nil, err
 	}
 
-	err = cloud.CreateDisk(name, zone.FailureDomain, int64(requestGB), *c.options.CloudTags)
+	zone := volume.ChooseZoneForVolume(zones, c.options.PVCName)
+
+	err = cloud.CreateDisk(name, zone, int64(requestGB), *c.options.CloudTags)
 	if err != nil {
 		glog.V(2).Infof("Error creating GCE PD volume: %v", err)
 		return "", 0, nil, err
 	}
 	glog.V(2).Infof("Successfully created GCE PD volume %s", name)
 
-	labels, err := cloud.GetAutoLabelsForPD(name)
+	labels, err := cloud.GetAutoLabelsForPD(name, zone)
 	if err != nil {
 		// We don't really want to leak the volume here...
 		glog.Errorf("error getting labels for volume %q: %v", name, err)
diff --git a/pkg/volume/plugins.go b/pkg/volume/plugins.go
index 717dd138084..6a58b68812d 100644
--- a/pkg/volume/plugins.go
+++ b/pkg/volume/plugins.go
@@ -49,6 +49,8 @@ type VolumeOptions struct {
 	// PV.Name of the appropriate PersistentVolume. Used to generate cloud
 	// volume name.
 	PVName string
+	// PVC.Name of the PersistentVolumeClaim; only set during dynamic provisioning.
+	PVCName string
 	// Unique name of Kubernetes cluster.
 	ClusterName string
 	// Tags to attach to the real volume in the cloud provider - e.g. AWS EBS
diff --git a/pkg/volume/util.go b/pkg/volume/util.go
index 696f9254b08..9c2b352b931 100644
--- a/pkg/volume/util.go
+++ b/pkg/volume/util.go
@@ -28,8 +28,13 @@ import (
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/watch"
 
 	"github.com/golang/glog"
+	"hash/fnv"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/api/errors"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/api/resource"
+	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/util/sets"
+	"math/rand"
+	"strconv"
+	"strings"
 )
 
 // RecycleVolumeByWatchingPodUntilCompletion is intended for use with volume
@@ -187,3 +192,59 @@ func GenerateVolumeName(clusterName, pvName string, maxLength int) string {
 	}
 	return prefix + "-" + pvName
 }
+
+// ChooseZone implements our heuristics for choosing a zone for volume creation based on the volume name
+// Volumes are generally round-robin-ed across all active zones, using the hash of the PVC Name.
+// However, if the PVCName ends with `-<integer>`, we will hash the prefix, and then add the integer to the hash.
+// This means that a PetSet's volumes (`claimname-petsetname-id`) will spread across available zones,
+// assuming the id values are consecutive.
+func ChooseZoneForVolume(zones sets.String, pvcName string) string {
+	// We create the volume in a zone determined by the name
+	// Eventually the scheduler will coordinate placement into an available zone
+	var hash uint32
+	var index uint32
+
+	if pvcName == "" {
+		// We should always be called with a name; this shouldn't happen
+		glog.Warningf("No name defined during volume create; choosing random zone")
+
+		hash = rand.Uint32()
+	} else {
+		hashString := pvcName
+
+		// Heuristic to make sure that volumes in a PetSet are spread across zones
+		// PetSet PVCs are (currently) named ClaimName-PetSetName-Id,
+		// where Id is an integer index
+		lastDash := strings.LastIndexByte(pvcName, '-')
+		if lastDash != -1 {
+			petIDString := pvcName[lastDash+1:]
+			petID, err := strconv.ParseUint(petIDString, 10, 32)
+			if err == nil {
+				// Offset by the pet id, so we round-robin across zones
+				index = uint32(petID)
+				// We still hash the volume name, but only the base
+				hashString = pvcName[:lastDash]
+				glog.V(2).Infof("Detected PetSet-style volume name %q; index=%d", pvcName, index)
+			}
+		}
+
+		// We hash the (base) volume name, so we don't bias towards the first N zones
+		h := fnv.New32()
+		h.Write([]byte(hashString))
+		hash = h.Sum32()
+	}
+
+	// Zones.List returns zones in a consistent order (sorted)
+	// We do have a potential failure case where volumes will not be properly spread,
+	// if the set of zones changes during PetSet volume creation.  However, this is
+	// probably relatively unlikely because we expect the set of zones to be essentially
+	// static for clusters.
+	// Hopefully we can address this problem if/when we do full scheduler integration of
+	// PVC placement (which could also e.g. avoid putting volumes in overloaded or
+	// unhealthy zones)
+	zoneSlice := zones.List()
+	zone := zoneSlice[(hash+index)%uint32(len(zoneSlice))]
+
+	glog.V(2).Infof("Creating volume for PVC %q; chose zone=%q from zones=%q", pvcName, zone, zoneSlice)
+	return zone
+}
diff --git a/plugin/pkg/admission/persistentvolume/label/admission.go b/plugin/pkg/admission/persistentvolume/label/admission.go
index f3b4fd86b51..67648058ed7 100644
--- a/plugin/pkg/admission/persistentvolume/label/admission.go
+++ b/plugin/pkg/admission/persistentvolume/label/admission.go
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ import (
 
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/admission"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/api"
+	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/api/unversioned"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/cloudprovider"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/aws"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/cloudprovider/providers/gce"
@@ -159,7 +160,10 @@ func (l *persistentVolumeLabel) findGCEPDLabels(volume *api.PersistentVolume) (m
 		return nil, fmt.Errorf("unable to build GCE cloud provider for PD")
 	}
 
-	labels, err := provider.GetAutoLabelsForPD(volume.Spec.GCEPersistentDisk.PDName)
+	// If the zone is already labeled, honor the hint
+	zone := volume.Labels[unversioned.LabelZoneFailureDomain]
+
+	labels, err := provider.GetAutoLabelsForPD(volume.Spec.GCEPersistentDisk.PDName, zone)
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}