AWS CloudFront allows users to control content delivery based on end-users' geographic locations. Geo-restriction, also known as geoblocking, enables users to block content delivery to specific countries or regions, which can be useful for complying with international copyright laws or licensing ag…AWS CloudFront allows users to control content delivery based on end-users' geographic locations. Geo-restriction, also known as geoblocking, enables users to block content delivery to specific countries or regions, which can be useful for complying with international copyright laws or licensing agreements. In addition to geo-restriction, CloudFront also offers price classes, a feature that allows users to tailor their distributions based on regional data transfer costs. By using these price classes, users can choose to serve content only from specific edge locations to control costs associated with delivering content to different geographic regions.
AWS CloudFront: Geo-Restrictions and Price Classes
In AWS CloudFront, two key features - Geo-Restrictions and Price Classes - significantly affect the way your content is distributed and how you're charged for the service.
Geo-Restrictions: Geo-restrictions, also known as Geo-blocking, is a feature that allows you to control which users in specific geographical locations are able to access your content distributed through CloudFront. It's important to implement Geo-Restrictions if you have content that should not be accessed in certain countries due to copyright issues, regulations, etc.
How Geo-Restrictions work: You can either choose to whitelist or blacklist countries. Whitelisting allows access to only users in the specified countries. Blacklisting blocks access to users in specified countries.
Price Classes: Price Classes allow you to control the cost of CloudFront by restricting the edge locations where your content will be served. AWS CloudFront has three price tiers with each tier having a different rate depending on the global regions that serve your content. Lower price classes mean fewer regions hence cheaper, but may increase the latency.
How Price Classes work: You select a price class that determines the regions that serve your content. If a region within your selected price class is unavailable, CloudFront automates content distribution to a region in next available price class.
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Geo-Restrictions and Price Classes: Understand the difference between whitelisting and blacklisting in Geo-Restrictions. Remember, that the main purpose of Geo-Restrictions is to control access based on geographical location, while Price Classes are mainly about managing costs and performance. If an exam question refers to controlling access to content based on location, it's likely about Geo-Restrictions. If it's about managing costs or performance, think Price Classes.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Geo-Restrictions and Price Classes Example Questions
Test your knowledge of Geo-Restrictions and Price Classes
Question 1
A small e-commerce website has customers from all around the world, but the majority of their customers are located in Asia and Europe. The website owner wants to use CloudFront to deliver some assets only to customers located in Asia and Europe. What is the most effective way to achieve this?
Question 2
An e-commerce website has customers from the United States and Europe. They need to block access to their website from users in certain countries for legal reasons. They are already utilizing CloudFront for their website. What should be their next step?
Question 3
An e-commerce site is served through an Amazon CloudFront distribution in front of an Application Load Balancer. For compliance, requests from specific countries must be blocked at the edge so they never reach the origin. The solution must be the simplest built-in approach that does not add additional managed services. Which action should you take to enforce this restriction?
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