Global Accelerator
💡 Definition
AWS Global Accelerator allows you to improve the availability and performance of your applications with local or global users. It provides two static IP addresses that act as a fixed entry point to your application endpoints (like Load Balancers or EC2 instances) in multiple Regions.
🔑 Key Concepts
- AWS Global Network: Traffic rides on the dedicated, high-performance AWS backbone network, bypassing the public internet's congestion.
- Static IPs: Provides two static Anycast IP addresses that don't change, even if you move your backend resources between Regions.
- Performance: Reduces latency by routing user traffic to the nearest AWS Edge Location and then over the AWS network.
- Fast Failover: Automatically re-routes traffic to a healthy endpoint in another Region if the closest one fails.
⚙️ How it Works
- Users connect to the static IP.
- Edge Location: Traffic enters the AWS network at the edge location closest to the user.
- Routing: It travels over the AWS fiber backbone to the optimal endpoint (ALB, EC2) in any Region.
🎯 Use Cases
- Gaming/VoIP: Applications sensitive to jitter and latency (UDP traffic).
- Global HTTP/S: Non-cacheable web traffic (unlike CloudFront which is for cacheable content).
- Blue/Green Deployment: Easily shifting traffic between Regions without DNS changes.
💰 Pricing Model
- Fixed Fee: Hourly charge.
- Data Transfer: Premium rate for data transfer over the global network.
📝 Exam Tips (CLF-C02)
- Two Static IPs (Anycast).
- Uses AWS Global Network (not public internet).
- Good for non-HTTP traffic (TCP/UDP) or non-cacheable content.
- Compare with CloudFront: CloudFront = Caching content; Global Accelerator = Routing traffic (performance/availability).
See Also: * CloudFront * Edge Location * Route 53