Global infrastructure
The AWS global infrastructure spans dozens of Regions, more than a hundred Availability Zones and hundreds of CloudFront points of presence.
Geographic locations isolated from one another, each with several Availability Zones. Data does not leave a Region unless you configure it to.
Key points
- Selection criteria: compliance (data residency), proximity to users, service availability and pricing.
- Not every service exists in every Region, and prices differ between them.
- Multiple Regions serve disaster recovery, business continuity, low latency and data sovereignty.
On the exam
If the question cites a data protection law or sovereignty, the first criterion for choosing a Region is compliance.
One or more data centers with redundant power, networking and connectivity. Every Region has at least three physically separate AZs.
Key points
- The AZs of a Region are linked by low-latency networking.
- AZs do not share single points of failure.
- High availability = spreading the application across multiple AZs.
On the exam
To survive a data center failure, the answer is multi-AZ. To survive losing a whole Region, multi-Region.
Edge locations
Points of presence
Cache sites in major cities around the world, used by Amazon CloudFront and Route 53 to deliver content with lower latency.
Key points
- They far outnumber Regions.
- They serve content caching (CloudFront) and DNS answers (Route 53).
- AWS Global Accelerator also uses the edge network to speed up traffic.
On the exam
"Deliver videos and static files with low latency to users worldwide" points to CloudFront and edge locations.
Extensions of a Region placed near large metropolitan areas, for workloads that need single-digit millisecond latency.
Key points
- Run services such as EC2, EBS and VPC close to end users.
- Use cases: media editing, real-time gaming, simulations.
- Connected to the parent Region over the AWS network.
On the exam
Very low latency for users in a specific city with no Region there: Local Zones.
Wavelength
AWS Wavelength
AWS infrastructure inside the 5G networks of telecom carriers.
Key points
- Brings compute and storage to the edge of the 5G network.
- Device traffic does not need to leave the carrier network.
- Use cases: connected vehicles, augmented reality, real-time streaming.
On the exam
The keyword is 5G: ultra-low-latency mobile apps use Wavelength.
Outposts
AWS Outposts
AWS-managed racks and servers installed in your own data center.
Key points
- The same AWS APIs, tools and services, running on premises.
- Meets data residency and local low-latency requirements.
- An example of a hybrid deployment.
On the exam
"Run AWS services inside my data center" is Outposts.