AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that improves the availability and performance of applications by directing traffic through the AWS global network infrastructure. It provides static IP addresses that serve as fixed entry points to your applications hosted in one or multiple AWS Regio…AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that improves the availability and performance of applications by directing traffic through the AWS global network infrastructure. It provides static IP addresses that serve as fixed entry points to your applications hosted in one or multiple AWS Regions.
Key Features:
1. **Static Anycast IP Addresses**: Global Accelerator provides two static IPv4 addresses that act as a single entry point for your application. These addresses are anycast from AWS edge locations, meaning traffic enters the AWS network at the closest point to your users.
2. **Intelligent Traffic Routing**: The service continuously monitors the health of application endpoints and routes traffic to the optimal endpoint based on performance, health, and configured weights. This ensures users are always directed to healthy, high-performing resources.
3. **Fault Tolerance**: When an endpoint becomes unhealthy, Global Accelerator automatically redirects traffic to healthy endpoints within seconds, providing seamless failover capabilities across Regions.
4. **Consistent Performance**: By leveraging the AWS backbone network rather than the public internet, traffic experiences reduced latency, jitter, and packet loss, resulting in more consistent application performance.
**Use Cases for Solutions Architects**:
- Multi-Region active-active or active-passive deployments
- Gaming applications requiring low latency
- IoT applications with global device distribution
- Applications requiring static IP addresses for firewall whitelisting
- Blue-green deployments with traffic shifting capabilities
**Continuous Improvement Considerations**:
When optimizing existing solutions, Global Accelerator can replace complex DNS-based routing solutions, improve failover times compared to Route 53 health checks, and provide better performance metrics through integrated CloudWatch monitoring. It supports weighted routing for gradual traffic migration during deployments and integrates with AWS Shield for DDoS protection, making it valuable for enhancing application resilience and user experience.
AWS Global Accelerator: Complete Guide for AWS Solutions Architect Professional Exam
Why AWS Global Accelerator is Important
AWS Global Accelerator is a critical networking service that addresses latency, availability, and performance challenges for globally distributed applications. Understanding this service is essential for the Solutions Architect Professional exam because it represents a key solution for optimizing user experience across geographic regions and ensuring high availability for mission-critical applications.
What is AWS Global Accelerator?
AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that improves the availability and performance of applications by directing traffic through the AWS global network infrastructure. It provides two static anycast IP addresses that serve as a fixed entry point to your application endpoints in multiple AWS Regions.
Key Components: - Static IP Addresses: Two static anycast IPv4 addresses that remain constant - Accelerator: Directs traffic to optimal endpoints based on health, geography, and routing policies - Listeners: Process inbound connections based on port and protocol configurations - Endpoint Groups: Associated with specific AWS Regions containing endpoints - Endpoints: Can be Application Load Balancers, Network Load Balancers, EC2 instances, or Elastic IP addresses
How AWS Global Accelerator Works
1. Traffic Entry: Users connect to the nearest AWS edge location using the static anycast IP addresses 2. AWS Backbone Network: Traffic is routed over the AWS private global network rather than the public internet 3. Intelligent Routing: Global Accelerator continuously monitors endpoint health and routes traffic to the healthiest available endpoint 4. Failover: Automatic failover occurs within seconds when endpoints become unhealthy
Routing Policies: - Endpoint Weights: Control the proportion of traffic directed to each endpoint - Traffic Dials: Control the percentage of traffic directed to an endpoint group - Client Affinity: Direct traffic from a specific client to the same endpoint
Key Use Cases
- Applications requiring static IP addresses for whitelisting - Gaming applications needing low latency - IoT applications with global device connectivity - Voice over IP (VoIP) applications - Financial trading platforms - Healthcare applications requiring consistent connectivity - Blue/green deployments and A/B testing
Global Accelerator vs CloudFront
Choose Global Accelerator when: - You need static IP addresses - You have non-HTTP use cases (TCP/UDP) - You need fast regional failover - You require deterministic routing
Choose CloudFront when: - You need content caching - You serve static content or media - You want edge-based Lambda processing - Your workload is primarily HTTP/HTTPS
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on AWS Global Accelerator
1. Look for Static IP Requirements: When a scenario mentions the need for fixed IP addresses for firewall whitelisting or DNS independence, Global Accelerator is likely the answer
2. Identify Non-HTTP Protocols: Questions involving TCP or UDP traffic that need global optimization point toward Global Accelerator rather than CloudFront
3. Recognize Failover Scenarios: When rapid failover between regions is required with consistent entry points, Global Accelerator provides this capability
4. Watch for Performance Keywords: Terms like low latency, consistent performance, or global users often indicate Global Accelerator as a solution
5. Blue/Green Deployments: Questions about gradually shifting traffic between application versions using traffic dials suggest Global Accelerator
6. Remember the Distinction: Global Accelerator optimizes the path to your application; CloudFront caches content at the edge
7. Health Check Awareness: Global Accelerator performs health checks and can route around unhealthy endpoints within seconds
8. Cost Considerations: Be aware that Global Accelerator charges for data transfer and a fixed hourly fee per accelerator
9. DDoS Protection: Global Accelerator is integrated with AWS Shield Standard and can be used with Shield Advanced for enhanced protection
10. Endpoint Types: Remember that endpoints can be ALB, NLB, EC2 instances, or Elastic IPs across multiple regions