AWS Global Accelerator


  • Leverages the AWS internal network to route to the application
  • 2 Anycast IPs are created for the application
    • Unicast IP: One server holds one IP address
    • Anycast IP: All servers hold the same IP address and the client is routed to the nearest one
  • The Anycast IP sends traffic directly to Edge Locations
  • The Edge locations send the traffic to the application
  • Works with EIP, EC2, ALB, NLB, Public or Private
  • Consistent Performance
  • Health Checks
  • Security
    • Only 2 external IPs need to be whitelisted
    • DDoS protection by AWS Shield

AWS Global Accelerator vs CloudFront

  • They both use the AWS global network and its edge locations around the world
  • Both services integrate with AWS Shield for DDoS protection
  • CloudFront
    • Improves performance for both cacheable content (such as images and videos)
    • Dynamic content (such as API acceleration and dynamic site delivery)
    • Content is served at the edge
  • Global Accelerator
    • Improves performance for a wide range of applications over TCP/UDP
    • Proxying packets at the edge to applications running in one or more AWS Regions
    • Good for
      • non-HTTP use cases, such as gaming(UDP), IoT(MQTT), or Voice over IP
      • HTTP use cases that require a static IP addresses
      • HTTP use cases that require deterministic, fast regional failover

References