AWS Global Infrastructure

TL;DR

AWS Global Infrastructure Overview

• AWS Global Infrastructure consists of Regions, Availability Zones, and Edge Locations
• Regions are geographic locations worldwide where AWS hosts its data centers
• Availability Zones are clusters of data centers within Regions, offering redundant power, networking, and connectivity
• Edge Locations are global sites where content is cached for faster delivery to end-users

Choosing AWS Regions

• Key factors in selecting a Region: latency, price, service availability, and compliance requirements
• Regions are independent; data is not replicated between Regions without explicit authorization

AWS Service Distribution

• Amazon CloudFront uses Edge Locations to deliver content with low latency worldwide
• Not all AWS services are available in every Region

I. Regions

Regions are geographic locations worldwide where AWS hosts its data centers. AWS Regions are named after the location where they reside.

For example, in the United States, the Region in Northern Virginia is called the Northern Virginia Region, and the Region in Oregon is called the Oregon Region.

AWS has Regions in Asia Pacific, China, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America.

Each AWS Region is associated with a geographical name and a Region code.

Here are examples of Region codes:

• us-east-1 is the first Region created in the eastern US area. The geographical name for this Region is N. Virginia.
• ap-northeast-1 is the first Region created in the northeast Asia Pacific area. The geographical name for this Region is Tokyo.

Choosing the right AWS Region

AWS Regions are independent from one another.

Without explicit customer consent and authorization, data is not replicated from one Region to another.

When you decide which AWS Region to host your applications and workloads, consider four main aspects:

• Latency
• Price
• Service availability
• Compliance

Latency

If your application is sensitive to latency (the delay between a request for data and the response), choose a Region that is close to your user base.

This helps prevent long wait times for your customers.

Synchronous applications such as gaming, telephony, WebSockets, and Internet of Things (IoT) are significantly affected by high latency.

Asynchronous workloads, such as ecommerce applications, can also suffer from user connectivity delays.

Price

Due to the local economy and the physical nature of operating data centers, prices vary from one Region to another. Internet connectivity, imported equipment costs, customs, real estate, and other factors impact a Region's pricing. Instead of charging a flat rate worldwide, AWS charges based on the financial factors specific to each Region.

Service availability

Some services might not be available in some Regions. The AWS documentation provides a table that shows the services available in each Region.

Compliance

Enterprise companies often must comply with regulations that require customer data to be stored in a specific geographic territory. If applicable, choose a Region that meets your compliance requirements.

II. Availability Zones

Inside every Region is a cluster of Availability Zones. An Availability Zone consists of one or more data centers with redundant power, networking, and connectivity.

These data centers operate in discrete facilities in undisclosed locations. They are connected using redundant high-speed and low-latency links.

Availability Zones also have code names. Because they are located inside Regions, they can be addressed by appending a letter to the end of the Region code name. Here are examples of Availability Zone codes:

• us-east-1a is an Availability Zone in us-east-1 (N. Virginia Region).
• sa-east-1b is an Availability Zone in sa-east-1 (São Paulo Region).

Therefore, if you see that a resource exists in us-east-1c, you can infer that the resource is located in Availability Zone c of the us-east-1 Region.

III. Edge locations

Edge locations are global locations where content is cached.

For example, if your media content is in London and you want to share video files with your customers in Sydney, you could have the videos cached in an edge location closest to Sydney.

This would make it possible for your customers to access the cached videos more quickly than accessing them from London. Currently, there are over 400+ edge locations globally.

Amazon CloudFront delivers your content through a worldwide network of edge locations.

When a user requests content that is being served with CloudFront, the request is routed to the location that provides the lowest latency.

So that content is delivered with the best possible performance.

CloudFront speeds up the distribution of your content by routing each user request through the AWS backbone network to the edge location that can best serve your content.