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A global software company provides a SaaS application that serves customers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Users in each region must experience the lowest possible latency when accessing the application. The application backend is deployed across multiple AWS regions, and data consistency is eventually consistent. Which routing policy should be implemented to achieve optimal user experience globally?
- AGeolocation Routing Policy
- BLatency Routing Policy
- CFailover Routing Policy
- DWeighted Routing Policy
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Latency Routing Policy
Amazon Route 53's Latency Routing Policy routes user requests to the AWS region that provides the lowest network latency for that user. This is ideal for a global SaaS application with deployments in multiple regions where the primary goal is to minimize access time for users worldwide.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Geolocation routing routes users based on their geographic location (e.g., all users from Europe go to the EU region), but it doesn't guarantee the lowest latency as network paths can vary. It's more about data residency or specific regional content.
- C. Failover routing is for high availability and disaster recovery, directing traffic to a secondary healthy endpoint only when the primary is unhealthy, not for continuous lowest-latency routing.
- D. Weighted routing distributes traffic among multiple endpoints based on assigned weights, useful for splitting traffic for A/B testing or gradual rollouts, but not for automatically routing to the lowest latency endpoint.
Route 53 Latency Routing
Amazon Route 53 Latency Routing Policy directs user requests to the AWS region that provides the lowest network latency for the user.
- Optimizes user experience by reducing access time.
- Requires resources in multiple AWS regions.
- Based on the measured latency between end-users and AWS regions.
- Suitable for applications with globally distributed users and multi-region deployments.
Memory trick: Route 53: Rules for Routing, Right to the Region.