AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03)Design High-Performing ArchitecturesMedium
A global software company provides a SaaS application that serves customers across North America, Europe, and Asia. The application's backend consists of EC2 instances running in multiple AWS regions. The company wants to route user requests to the nearest healthy application endpoint to minimize latency and improve user experience, even during regional outages. Which AWS networking service should they use?
- AElastic Load Balancer (ELB) in each region with cross-zone load balancing.
- BAWS Transit Gateway to connect regional VPCs.
- CAWS Global Accelerator with custom routing accelerators.
- DAmazon Route 53 with simple routing policy.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. AWS Global Accelerator with custom routing accelerators.
AWS Global Accelerator uses the AWS global network backbone and intelligent routing to direct user traffic to the nearest healthy endpoint, significantly reducing latency and improving availability across multiple regions. It provides static IP addresses that act as a fixed entry point to your application.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. ELBs distribute traffic within a single region (or across AZs within a region), not across multiple AWS regions for global latency optimization.
- B. AWS Transit Gateway connects VPCs and on-premises networks but does not directly optimize user-to-application routing based on latency across global regions.
- D. Route 53 with simple routing does not consider user location or endpoint health for optimal routing; latency-based routing is better but Global Accelerator offers more significant performance improvements.
AWS Global Accelerator
AWS Global Accelerator improves the availability and performance of applications by directing user traffic to the nearest healthy endpoint across multiple AWS regions using the AWS global network backbone.
- Uses static IP addresses as entry points.
- Routes traffic over AWS global network, bypassing congested public internet.
- Improves performance and availability.
- Supports multi-region active-active or active-passive architectures.
- Directs users to the optimal endpoint based on health and geographic location.
Memory trick: Global Accelerator is like a super-fast highway for your users, always taking the best route.