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AWS Global Infrastructure

·1164 words·6 mins

A Global Application is an application deployed in multiple geographies. On AWS this could be Regions and / or Edge Locations.

  • Decreased Latency
  • Disaster Recovery
  • (DOS / DDOS) Attack protection (distributed global infrastructure is harder to attack)

More: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/

  • Route53
  • CloudFront (Global CDN)
  • S3 Transfer Acceleration
  • AWS Global Accelerator

AWS Global Infrastructure Overview - Regions, Availability Zones, Edge Locations and more


Route53 #

Route53 is managed DNS.

How Route 53 routes traffic for your domain

Route53 Routing Policies #

  • Simple Routing Policy - No health checks,, just DNS check
  • Weighted Routing Policy - Specify what amount of traffic goes where (i.e. 70% = Server1, 20% = Server2, 10% = Server3. Simple form of Load Balancing)
  • Latency Routing Policy - Based on latency - minimizing the latency between user and the server sending the traffic that is geographically (latency-based) closer to the user
  • Failover Routing Policy - Disaster Recovery (DR) - based on Health Checks
  • Geolocation Routing Policy - Routing based specifically on Geolocation
  • IP-based Routing Policy - Route the traffic based on the IP address originates from

More on Routing Policies: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/routing-policy.html


AWS Route 53 Course


Registering a domain #

# Register a Domain
Route 53 > Registered Domains > Register Domain > CHOOSEADOMAIN.COM

# Hosted zones
Route 53 > Hosted zones > select "CHOOSEADOMAIN.COM" > Update the DNS records with the right EC2 instances, select an adequate Routing Policy

More about Registering and managing domains: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/registrar.html

More about Route 53: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/route53/

Amazon CloudFront #

  • Content Delivery Network (CDN)
  • Improves read performance, content cached at the edge
  • Improves users experience
  • Many Points of Presence globally (Edge Locations, Edge Caches)
  • DDoS protection (because it’s distributed globally)
  • Integrated with Shield and AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall)

CloudFront - Origins #

  • S3 Bucket
    • For distributing files and caching them at the edge
    • For uploading files to S3 through CloudFront
    • Secured using Origin Access Control (OAC)
  • VPC Origin
  • Custom Origin (HTTP)
    • S3 website (must first enable the bucket as a static S3 website)
    • Any public HTTP backend

How CloudFront delivers content

CloudFront vs S3 Cross Region Replication #

CloudFront #

  • Global Edge Network
  • Files are cached for a TTL (day?)
  • Use case: static content that must be available everywhere

S3 Cross Region Replication #

  • Must be setup for each region you want your replication to happen
  • Files are updated in near real-time
  • Read-only
  • Use case: dynamic content that needs to be available at low-latency in few regions only

S3 Transfer Acceleration #

Increase transfer speed by transferring files to an AWS edge location which will forward the data to the S3 bucket in the target region.

AWS Global Accelerator #

AWS Global Accelerator is used to improve global application availability and performance using the AWS global network.

Leverage the AWS internal network to optimize the route to your application (60% improvement).

More about AWS Global Accelerator:

AWS Global Accelerator vs CloudFront #

  • They both use AWS global network and it’s edge locations
  • Both services integrate with AWS Shield for DDoS protection
  • CloudFront - Content Delivery Network
    • Improves performance for cacheable content (images, videos, etc.)
    • Content is served at the edge
  • Global Accelerator
    • No caching, proxying packets at the edge to applications running in one or more AWS regions
    • Improves performance for a wide range of applications running in one or more AWS regions
    • Improves performance for a wide range of applications over TCP or UDP
    • Good for HTTP use cases that require static IP addresses
    • Good for HTTP use cases that require deterministic, fast, regional failover

AWS Outposts #

AWS Outposts = Hybrid Cloud appliances. #

Outposts are “server racks” that offer the same AWS infrastructure, services, API’s & tools to build your own applications on-premises just as in the cloud.

AWS will setup and manage Outposts racks within your on-premises infrastructure. #

Benefits

  • Low latency access to on-premises system
  • Local data processing
  • Data residency
  • Easier migration from on-premises to the cloud
  • Fully managed service
  • Some example services that work on Outposts:
    • EC2
    • EBS
    • S3
    • EKS
    • ECS
    • RDS
    • EMR

Wavelength #

Wavelength Zones are infrastructure deployments embedded within the telecommunication providers datacenters at the edge of the 5G networks.

  • Ultra low latency applications through 5G networks
  • Traffic doesn’t leave the Communication Service Provider’s (CSP) network
  • High bandwidth and secure connection to the parent AWS Region
  • No additional charges or service agreements
  • Use cases:
    • Smart Cities
    • ML-assisted (Machine Learning) diagnostics
    • Connected Vehicles
    • Interactive Live Video Streams
    • AR / VR
    • Real-time gaming

AWS Local Zones #

AWS Local Zones allow placing compute, storage, database and other selected AWS services closer to the users to run latency-sensitive applications.

It is an “Extension of AWS Region”.

Example: #
  • AWS Region: N. Virginia (us-east-1)
    • AWS Local Zones: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, …

How AWS Local Zones work

Compatible with: #
  • EC2
  • RDS
  • ECS
  • EBS
  • ElastiCache
  • Direct Connect
  • More…

More about AWS Local Zones: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/local-zones/latest/ug/what-is-aws-local-zones.html

Summary #

Route 53 - Global DNS #

  • Great to route users to the closest deployment with least latency
  • Great for Disaster Recovery - DR - Strategies

CloudFront - Global CDN - Content Delivery Network #

  • Replicate part of your application to AWS Edge Locations - decreased latency
  • Cache common requests - improved user experience and decreased latency

S3 Transfer Acceleration #

  • Accelerate global uploads & downloads into Amazon S3

AWS Global Accelerator #

  • Improve global application availability and performance using the AWS global network

AWS Outposts #

  • Deploy Outposts racks in an on-premises datacenter to extend some AWS services and for easier migration

AWS Wavelength #

  • Brings AWS services to the edge of the 5G networks
  • Ultra-low latency applications

AWS Local Zones #

  • Bring AWS resources (compute, database, storage, …) closer to your users
  • Good for latency-sensitive applications

» Sources « #

Global Infrastructure: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/

Route 53 #

Route 53: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/route53/ Route 53 Routing Policies: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/routing-policy.html Registering and managing domains: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/registrar.html

CloudFront #

CloudFront: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/

AWS Global Accelerator #

https://aws.amazon.com/global-accelerator/ https://docs.aws.amazon.com/global-accelerator/latest/dg/what-is-global-accelerator.html https://speedtest.globalaccelerator.aws

AWS Local Zones #

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/local-zones/latest/ug/what-is-aws-local-zones.html

» References « #

» Table of contents (CLF-C02) « #

1. What is Cloud Computing2. IAM3. Budget
4. EC25. Security Groups6. Storage
7. AMI8. Scalability & High Availability9. Elastic Load Balancing
10. Auto Scaling Group11. S312. Databases
13. Other Compute Services14. Deployments15. AWS Global Infrastructure
16. Cloud Integrations17. Cloud Monitoring18. VPC
19. Security and Compliance20. Machine Learning21. Account Management and Billing
22. Advanced Identity23. Other Services24. AWS Architecting & Ecosystem
25. Preparing for AWS Practitioner exam

» Disclaimer « #

Disclaimer: Content for educational purposes only, no rights reserved.

Most of the content in this series is coming from Stephane Maarek’s Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 2025 course on Udemy.

I highly encourage you to take the Stephane’s courses as they are awesome and really help understanding the subject.

More about Stephane Maarek:

This article is just a summary and has been published to help me learning and passing the practitioner exam.