AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that improves the availability and performance of your applications for global users by routing traffic through the AWS global network using Anycast IP addresses.
🚀 Key Benefits
| Feature |
Description |
| Global Performance Boost |
Routes user traffic to nearest AWS edge location using AWS backbone |
| Static Anycast IPs |
Fixed IPs distributed globally; no need to update DNS during failover |
| Automatic Health Checks |
Reroutes traffic to healthy endpoints across regions or AZs |
| DDoS Protection |
Integrated with AWS Shield for Layer 3/4 protection |
| Fast Failover |
Sub-second rerouting when an endpoint becomes unhealthy |
🏗️ How It Works
-
You create a Global Accelerator, which gives you two static anycast IPs.
- These IPs route user traffic to the closest AWS edge location.
- Traffic is then forwarded to your application endpoints (ALBs, NLBs, EC2, etc.) in one or multiple AWS Regions.
- If an endpoint or region fails, traffic is instantly rerouted to a healthy one.
🌍 Architecture Diagram (Concept)
+--------------+ +------------------------+ +------------------+
| Global User | ---> | Global Accelerator Edge| ---> | Nearest AWS Region|
+--------------+ +------------------------+ +------------------+
|
+--------+--------+
| Region A |
| ALB / NLB / EC2|
+----------------+
| Region B |
| ALB / NLB / EC2|
+----------------+
⚙️ Supported Endpoints
You can direct traffic to:
- ✅ Application Load Balancer (ALB)
- ✅ Network Load Balancer (NLB)
- ✅ EC2 Instances (via NLB)
- ✅ Elastic IPs
- ✅ Private IPs in VPC (for internal apps with VPC endpoints)
📏 Use Cases
| Use Case |
Benefit |
| Global websites/apps |
Low latency access worldwide |
| Multi-region redundancy |
Automatic failover |
| Gaming & VoIP |
Reduce jitter and packet loss |
| SaaS platforms |
Consistent IP addresses across regions |
💰 Pricing Overview
| Cost Component |
Description |
| Accelerator hourly fee |
~$0.025 per hour (per accelerator) |
| Data transfer |
Charged per GB, varies by region & direction |
⚠️ Global Accelerator is not free like Route 53 or CloudFront DNS-level routing.
🆚 Global Accelerator vs CloudFront
| Feature |
Global Accelerator |
CloudFront |
| Optimized for |
TCP/UDP apps, low latency, failover |
Static/dynamic content delivery |
| Uses Anycast IPs? |
✅ Yes |
❌ No (uses DNS + edge caching) |
| Acts as CDN? |
❌ No |
✅ Yes |
| Supports web sockets? |
✅ Yes |
❌ No |
| Cache content? |
❌ No |
✅ Yes |
✅ Summary
| Feature |
Value |
| IP Type |
Static Anycast IPs |
| Latency Optimization |
Via AWS global network |
| Health Checks |
Yes (with automatic failover) |
| Supported Endpoints |
ALB, NLB, EC2, Elastic IPs |
| Security |
AWS Shield + IAM + VPC Security Groups |
| Ideal Use Cases |
Global apps, real-time apps, HA systems |
