Boost Your Application Performance with AWS Global Accelerator

Introduction

Imagine your users clicking a button and waiting seconds for a response because traffic is routed through a distant data center. With AWS Global Accelerator, that lag becomes a thing of the past. This fully‑managed service directs user traffic to the optimal AWS endpoint, delivering up to 60% lower latency and a more reliable experience.

What Is AWS Global Accelerator?

AWS Global Accelerator is a network‑level service that uses the Amazon Edge network to improve the availability and performance of your applications. It provides two static IP addresses that act as a single entry point for user traffic, then intelligently routes that traffic to the healthiest regional endpoint—whether it’s an Elastic Load Balancer, EC2 instance, or Elastic IP.

Key Benefits

• Reduced latency: Traffic follows the shortest, least‑congested path.
• Improved availability: Automatic failover to healthy endpoints.
• Static IPs: Simplifies DNS management and firewall rules.
• Global reach: Leverages AWS edge locations in over 100 cities.

How It Works

Global Accelerator sits between your users and AWS resources. When a request arrives at one of the accelerator’s static IPs, the service consults the global accelerator routing engine to choose the best endpoint based on latency, health, and configured traffic dial values.

Components

1. Accelerator: The top‑level container that holds listeners and endpoint groups.
2. Listener: Listens on a specific port (TCP/UDP) and forwards traffic to endpoint groups.
3. Endpoint Group: A set of endpoints in a single AWS region. You can assign a traffic‑dial (0‑100) to control the proportion of traffic each group receives.
4. Endpoint: Your actual resources—ALB, NLB, EC2, or Elastic IP.

Step‑by‑Step Setup Guide

1. Create the Accelerator

In the AWS Management Console, navigate to Global Accelerator > Create Accelerator. Choose a descriptive name, enable Standard (or Custom routing for specialized use cases), and click Create. Two static IPs are provisioned automatically.

2. Add Listeners

Define the protocol (TCP or UDP) and port range your application uses. For a web app, you’d typically add a TCP listener on port 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS).

3. Configure Endpoint Groups

Select the AWS regions where your resources reside. For each group, set the traffic dial—e.g., 100 for primary regions and 0 for warm standby regions. Optionally, enable client IP preservation to pass the original user IP to your backend.

4. Attach Endpoints

Choose the specific ALB, NLB, EC2 instance, or Elastic IP that will receive traffic. You can add multiple endpoints per group for load balancing.

5. Test and Monitor

Use the Global Accelerator Dashboard to view real‑time health checks, traffic distribution, and latency metrics. Adjust traffic‑dial values or add new endpoint groups as your application scales.

Best Practices

• Health Checks: Keep health‑check intervals short (30 seconds) and thresholds low to detect failures quickly.
• Multiple Endpoints: Distribute load across at least two endpoints per region for redundancy.
• Use Standard Acceleration for Most Apps: Custom routing is reserved for gaming, VoIP, or other latency‑sensitive protocols.
• Leverage DNS TTL: Point your domain’s A record to the accelerator’s static IPs and set a low TTL (e.g., 60 seconds) to allow fast failover.
• Combine with AWS WAF: Protect your application while still benefiting from low‑latency routing.

FAQ

Is AWS Global Accelerator a CDN?

No. While both improve performance, a CDN caches content at edge locations, whereas Global Accelerator routes traffic to the nearest healthy endpoint without caching.

Can I use Global Accelerator with on‑premises servers?

Yes. By registering your on‑premises IP address as an endpoint, traffic can be steered to your data center when needed.

How do I control traffic distribution across regions?

Use the traffic‑dial setting in each endpoint group. Setting a dial to 0% sends no traffic, while 100% directs all traffic to that region.

What pricing model applies?

Charges are based on the number of accelerator hours and data transferred out of the accelerator to your endpoints.

Does Global Accelerator support IPv6?

Yes. The static IPs are dual‑stack, handling both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.

Conclusion

AWS Global Accelerator gives you a simple, cost‑effective way to boost performance, increase availability, and simplify IP management for global applications. By routing users through the closest AWS edge location and automatically handling failover, you deliver a smoother experience that keeps customers engaged.

Call to Action

Ready to accelerate your app? Create a Global Accelerator now and see latency drop in minutes.