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AWS Local Zones

AWS Local Zones are a new type of AWS infrastructure deployment that brings AWS services closer to end-users in metropolitan areas. AWS Local Zones are designed to provide low latency, high bandwidth, and secure connectivity to applications that require real-time or interactive performance, such as gaming, media streaming, machine learning, and financial transactions.

AWS Local Zones are extensions of AWS Regions that are physically located in major cities, such as Los Angeles, Boston, Houston, and Miami. Each AWS Local Zone consists of one or more Availability Zones (AZs), which are isolated and fault-tolerant locations with independent power, cooling, and networking. AWS Local Zones offer a subset of AWS services that are optimized for low latency and high throughput, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, Amazon VPC, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, Amazon ElastiCache, and Amazon Elastic Load Balancing.

By using AWS Local Zones, customers can run their latency-sensitive applications closer to their end-users, while still leveraging the scalability, reliability, and security of AWS. Customers can also easily access the full range of AWS services in the parent Region through the same APIs and tools. For example, a customer can launch an EC2 instance in an AWS Local Zone in Los Angeles and use Amazon S3 in the US West (Oregon) Region to store their data.

AWS Local Zones are ideal for applications that need to deliver a consistent and high-quality user experience across different geographic locations. Some of the benefits of using AWS Local Zones are:

  • Low latency: AWS Local Zones provide single-digit millisecond latency to end-users in the same metropolitan area.
  • High bandwidth: AWS Local Zones offer up to 100 Gbps of network bandwidth between instances within the same AZ and up to 40 Gbps between AZs within the same Local Zone.
  • Secure connectivity: AWS Local Zones use the same encryption standards and security features as AWS Regions, such as AWS KMS, AWS IAM, and AWS CloudTrail.
  • Easy management: Customers can use the same AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, SDKs, and APIs to manage their resources in AWS Local Zones as they do in AWS Regions.
  • Seamless integration: Customers can use AWS Direct Connect or VPN to connect their on-premises networks to AWS Local Zones and access other AWS services in the parent Region or other Regions.
  • Cost-effective: Customers pay the same price for AWS services in AWS Local Zones as they do in the parent Region.

To get started with AWS Local Zones, customers need to enable them in their AWS account and select the desired Local Zone when launching their resources. Customers can also use AWS CloudFormation or other automation tools to deploy their applications across multiple Local Zones. For more information on how to use AWS Local Zones, please visit https://docs.aws.amazon.com/local-zones/latest/ug/what-is-aws-local-zones.html.