AWS Global Infrastructure

When we kickstart the journey in AWS cloud, first concept we need to understand is about the AWS Global infrastructure.

AWS Global infrastructure consists of:

1. Regions

2. Availability Zones

3. Edge Locations

Lets deep dive into each of the above units.

Regions:

Regions are physical locations around the world with multiple Availability Zones. Each region is physically isolated and independent from others in terms of location, power, and other factors. Every region has at least 2 Availability Zones (AZ). The largest AWS region is US-EAST-1. Almost all new AWS services are first available in the US-EAST-1 region. Not all services are available in every region. US-EAST-1 is also where you can view billing information.

Availability Zones(AZ):

Availability Zones refer to one or more discrete data centers in a region. These data centers are owned and operated by AWS, where AWS services run. Each region has at least 2 AZs. They are represented by a region code followed by a letter identifier (e.g., us-east-1a).

Distributing your instances across multiple AZs allows for failover configurations to handle requests if one goes down. This is known as a Multi-AZ configuration. The latency between different AZs is expected to be less than 10ms.

Edge Locations:

An Edge location is a data center owned by a trusted partner of AWS with a direct connection to the AWS network. These locations handle requests for AWS services like CloudFront and Route 53. Requests to either of these services are automatically routed to the nearest edge location. S3 transfer acceleration traffic and API Gateway endpoint traffic also use the AWS Edge Network. This ensures low latency regardless of the end user's geographic location.

Another important aspect of the AWS Global Infrastructure is GovCloud.

Govcloud(US):

AWS GovCloud regions allow customers to host sensitive, controlled unclassified information and other types of regulated workloads. These regions are operated by employees who are US citizens and are only accessible to US entities and root account holders who pass a screening process.

As of now, AWS has 33 launched regions and 105 AZs. This number keeps changing as AWS expands its infrastructure. You can find the latest information here.

To summarize, AWS owns a large global infrastructure that helps customers from various parts of the world.