AWS Local Zones: Extending AWS Infrastructure to On-Premises

AWS Local Zones provide customers with the ability to run select AWS services on-premises while seamlessly connecting back to the full range of cloud capabilities. Local Zones extend AWS infrastructure, APIs, tools, and services into customer data centers, on-premises equipment, and co-location facilities. This enables applications to leverage cloud resources for ultra-low latency access while keeping data processing and workloads local. Local Zones are fully managed by AWS and come preconfigured with the hardware, networking, security, and software required to deliver a consistent AWS experience on-premises. Customers get a dedicated Local Zone mapped to a specific AWS Region, allowing on-premises resources to easily interact with cloud resources in the paired Region. Key use cases for Local Zones include low latency processing, migrating on-prem apps to the cloud, disaster recovery, and running workloads that require local data access. Overall, Local Zones give customers flexibility in integrating on-premises environments with the AWS global infrastructure.

Overview of Local Zones

• Local Zones provide AWS compute, storage, database, and other select services within customer data centers. This allows applications to run on-premises while seamlessly using the full range of AWS services.
• Local Zones connect to the AWS Region they are associated with over a highly secure, fiber-optic network. This provides very fast connectivity between on-premises and the AWS Region.
• Local Zones are fully managed and operated by AWS. They provide the same AWS hardware, APIs, and tools used in AWS Regions.
• Customers get a dedicated Local Zone for their on-premises data center. The Local Zone capacity is customizable to meet resource needs.

Benefits of Using Local Zones

There are several key benefits to using Local Zones for on-premises applications:

Ultra-low latency — By providing AWS infrastructure locally, Local Zones enable very low latency connectivity for workloads. This is ideal for data processing, local databases, IoT devices, and other use cases requiring millisecond response times.

On-premises access — Local Zones allow services that require on-premises access to integrate natively with AWS. Examples include legacy datasets, specialized hardware, and software that must run in the local data center.

Data sovereignty — For datasets and workloads that must remain on-premises due to compliance or data sovereignty requirements, Local Zones enable using AWS services while keeping data local.

Disaster recovery — On-premises applications can take advantage of AWS for disaster recovery by failing over to the parent AWS Region. The Local Zone provides low latency access to standby capacity.

Migrate apps to the cloud — Rather than re-architecting applications to run on AWS, Local Zones allow gradually migrating them while reducing risk.

Extend AWS services on-premises — Customers can use managed AWS services like RDS, ElastiCache, and CloudWatch on-premises through the Local Zone.

Single pane of glass — Local Zones can be managed through the same AWS console, APIs, and tools used for the AWS global cloud. This provides a unified management experience.

By providing AWS infrastructure and services locally, Local Zones give customers more flexibility for running workloads on-premises or in the cloud.

Key Services Available in Local Zones

AWS Local Zones provide many of the same familiar AWS services for use on-premises:

EC2 — Launch virtual machine instances locally with access to the full range of EC2 instance types. Local instances can connect to other VPC resources.

EBS — Create Elastic Block Store volumes locally to provide low latency persistent storage for EC2 instances.

FSx — Managed file storage like FSx for Windows File Server and FSx for Lustre can run on local hardware.

RDS — Launch managed relational databases like Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQL Server within the Local Zone.

ElastiCache — Deploy in-memory caching with Redis or Memcached to reduce database latency for applications.

CloudWatch — Monitor local resources and applications using CloudWatch for metrics, logs and dashboards.

AWS Backup — Backup EBS volumes, RDS databases, FSx file systems locally for on-premises backups.

Docker Images — Pull Docker images from Amazon ECR to run containerized applications within the Local Zone.

AWS License Manager — Manage licenses for software running on EC2 and AWS services locally.

AWS App Mesh — Service mesh to monitor and control microservices running on local EC2 instances.

Many other AWS services are on the roadmap to be supported by Local Zones soon. Overall, Local Zones provide the key services for running both legacy and modern applications.

AWS CLI Commands for Local Zones

Here are some example AWS CLI commands for working with Local Zones:

List available Local Zones:

Create an EC2 instance in a Local Zone:

Create an RDS database instance in a Local Zone:

Describe EBS volumes in a Local Zone:

The AWS CLI provides the same functionality for Local Zones as for global AWS Regions. The key difference is specifying the LocalZoneId parameter to launch resources in a particular on-premises Local Zone.

Conclusion

AWS Local Zones provide an efficient way to extend AWS services and infrastructure on-premises. By placing select AWS compute, storage, database, and other services locally, customers can achieve ultra-low latency while still leveraging the full capabilities of the AWS cloud. Key benefits of Local Zones include reduced latency for data processing, easier migration of on-premises applications, meeting data sovereignty needs, and using AWS for disaster recovery of local workloads. Familiar services like EC2, EBS, RDS, and ElastiCache can be provisioned on-premises through Local Zones, providing a seamless AWS experience. Local Zones are fully managed by AWS to provide the same hardware, APIs, and tools that customers rely on globally. With Local Zones, organizations gain flexibility in running cloud-native applications locally or in the cloud. By bridging on-premises environments with AWS Regions, Local Zones give customers the best of both worlds.