AWS Global Accelerator Specialized2018年〜
A service that improves application availability and performance using the AWS global network
What It Does
AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that routes user traffic to optimal endpoints using AWS's global network infrastructure. It provides fixed Anycast IP addresses, receives user traffic at edge locations worldwide, and forwards it to the nearest healthy endpoint via the AWS backbone network. This avoids internet congestion and can reduce latency by up to 60%.
Use Cases
It is used for accelerating globally deployed web applications, failover in multi-region configurations, low-latency connections to game servers, improving real-time communication quality for VoIP and video streaming, and traffic switching in disaster recovery (DR) configurations - anywhere global-scale network optimization is needed.
Everyday Analogy
Think of it like a direct flight from an airport. Normal internet traffic is like a connecting flight through multiple airports, subject to congestion and delays along the way. Global Accelerator arranges a direct flight from the nearest airport to your destination, using AWS's dedicated highway for the shortest route.
What Is Global Accelerator?
AWS Global Accelerator improves application performance and availability by leveraging AWS's worldwide edge locations and backbone network. Normal internet traffic passes through multiple ISPs and peering points, making it susceptible to route congestion and failures. Global Accelerator receives traffic at the edge location closest to the user and forwards it via AWS's dedicated network, delivering stable low-latency communication.
Anycast IP and Traffic Routing
Global Accelerator provides two fixed Anycast IP addresses. These IPs are announced simultaneously from edge locations worldwide, so user traffic automatically reaches the nearest edge location. Since no DNS changes or IP address switching is needed, failover in multi-region configurations completes in seconds. Traffic dials enable fine-grained control of traffic distribution between regions, useful for blue/green deployments and canary releases. For the latest trends and practical techniques on Anycast IP and traffic routing, related books (Amazon) are also available.
Health Checks and Failover
Global Accelerator continuously monitors endpoint health and automatically routes traffic to healthy endpoints when failures are detected. Health check intervals and thresholds are customizable to match your application's characteristics. In multi-region configurations, if all endpoints in one region become unhealthy, traffic automatically fails over to endpoints in another region, improving resilience against regional outages.
Things to Watch Out For
- CloudFront specializes in HTTP/HTTPS content caching and delivery, while Global Accelerator handles TCP/UDP-level traffic optimization. Choose based on your use case
- Especially useful when you need fixed IP addresses for firewall whitelisting or failover requirements that can't wait for DNS propagation
