Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced the completion of its first 16 AWS Local Zones in the U.S. and plans to launch new AWS Local Zones in 32 new metropolitan areas in 26 countries around the world.
AWS Local Zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that extends AWS Regions to place compute, storage, database, and other AWS services at the edge of the cloud near large population, industry, and IT centers — enabling customers to deploy applications that require single-digit millisecond latency closer to end users or on-premises data centers.
Closer to the end user
For applications that require ultra-low latency (e.g., remote real-time gaming, media and entertainment content creation, live video streaming, engineering simulations, augmented and virtual reality, machine learning inference at the edge, etc.), customers want AWS infrastructure closer to their end users to support a seamless experience. Other customers have local data residency requirements where they must run parts of their applications in on-premises data centers, but they also want to take advantage of AWS services and similarly benefit from the ultra-low latency that AWS Local Zones can provide to these types of hybrid applications. Both of these use cases would otherwise require customers to procure, operate, and maintain IT infrastructure—and use a different set of APIs and tools for the on-premises and AWS environments—which creates unnecessary costs and operational complexity.
Expansion in the Nordics
Prior to today, customers could use AWS Local Zones to deliver applications that require single-digit millisecond latency in 16 cities in the U.S. However, customers elsewhere in the world would also like to use AWS Local Zones to deliver applications closer to end users and run hybrid workloads near their data centers with single-digit millisecond latencies around the world. Therefore, over the next two years, new AWS Local Zones will launch in Oslo, Copenhagen amd Helsinki, as well as among others Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, and Warsaw. More locations will probably be added in the coming years.
Local Zones for Online Gaming
Finland-based Supercell is one of the most recognized mobile game developers in the world. Since its founding in 2010, Supercell has brought five chart-topping games to the market: Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Clash Royale, and Brawl Stars. “Our player base has scaled at an incredible pace, and we have relied on AWS to manage our infrastructure and match our growth. We deploy game servers in multiple AWS Regions today to serve our end users globally and evaluate all new Regions as they come online,” said Juho Mäkinen, Lead of Infrastructure and Services at Supercell. “We are also using AWS Local Zones as deployment targets in the U.S., and we are considering additional Local Zones as they become available in order to bring the latency-sensitive portions of game servers closer to more end users.”
