What it is
An AWS Local Zone is an extension of an AWS Region that places a limited set of AWS services close to end users or on-site systems in a metropolitan area. It is managed as part of its parent Region.
Why use one
- Latency-sensitive workloads: real-time gaming, live video, media rendering, AR/VR, financial trading tools.
- Data residency needs where data must stay inside a specific geography.
- Hybrid and migration scenarios where applications must remain near on-premises systems.
How it works
- You opt in to a Local Zone, then create a subnet in it inside your existing VPC.
- Resources launched in that subnet (EC2, EBS, ECS/EKS nodes, some RDS and load balancing options) run in the Local Zone. The VPC and its routing remain the parent Region’s constructs.
- Connectivity back to the Region travels over a private, high-bandwidth AWS connection. Local Zones can also use Direct Connect for on-premises access.
Design considerations
- Service availability is limited and differs by zone. Check which instance types and services each Local Zone supports before designing.
- Internet egress and NAT: some Local Zones support their own internet gateway and Elastic IPs, but others need traffic hairpinned back to the Region. Verify the options for your zone.
- Data transfer between the Local Zone and the Region is charged.
- Resilience: a Local Zone is a single location. For high availability, pair it with resources in the parent Region or another zone.
Local Zones vs Wavelength vs Outposts
- Local Zone: AWS-managed infrastructure in a metro area.
- Wavelength: AWS infrastructure embedded in telecom provider 5G networks.
- Outposts: AWS infrastructure installed at your site.
Quotas, limits and pricing change often. Confirm current values in the AWS documentation before designing around them.