AWS Global Accelerator

What it is

AWS Global Accelerator improves the availability and performance of applications for local and global users. It gives you static IP (Internet Protocol)The protocol that addresses and routes packets between networks. Each device has an IP address: IPv4 addresses look like 192.0.2.1, and IPv6 addresses are longer, like 2001:db8::1.Glossary entry addresses that are anycast from the AWS edge network: two static IPv4 addresses, or four addresses for dual stack. Traffic enters the AWS network at the Edge locationAn AWS site in a city, separate from the Regions, where Amazon CloudFront caches content close to users. Route 53, AWS WAF, AWS Shield, and AWS Global Accelerator also use the edge network, which has hundreds of locations.Glossary entry nearest each user, then travels over the congestion-free AWS global network to your endpoints in one or more AWS RegionA separate geographic area where AWS runs its services, such as us-east-1 in Northern Virginia, made up of several Availability Zones. Most resources live in one Region; you choose Regions for latency, data residency, and the services you need.Glossary entry.

Choose Global Accelerator when a question asks for static IP addresses for a global application, fast Regional FailoverSwitching automatically to a standby resource when the primary one fails, such as a standby database in Amazon RDS or a backup site chosen by Route 53 failover routing.Glossary entry without depending on DNS (Domain Name System)The internet's directory, which translates domain names such as example.com into IP addresses that computers use to connect. Amazon Route 53 is the AWS DNS service.Glossary entry caching, or better performance for TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)The transport protocol that delivers data reliably and in order: it sets up a connection first and resends lost packets. HTTP, SSH, and most database connections run over TCP.Glossary entry or UDP (User Datagram Protocol)A transport protocol that sends packets without setting up a connection or resending lost ones, trading reliability for low latency. DNS, video calls, and games often use it; Network Load Balancer and AWS Global Accelerator support UDP.Glossary entry applications such as gaming, IoT, or VoIP.

Concepts

Accelerator types:
- A standard accelerator sends traffic to the optimal endpoint based on the user's location, endpoint health, and the weights you set.
- A custom routing accelerator maps users deterministically to a specific EC2 destination, by IP address and port, for example to put players in the same game session.
Listener: the ports and protocol (TCP, UDP, or both) that the accelerator accepts.
Endpoint group: the endpoints in one AWS Region. A traffic dial sets the percentage of traffic sent to that Region, for example to shift traffic during Blue/green deploymentReleasing a new version (green) alongside the running one (blue), then moving traffic to green once it is ready. Rolling back is quick: move the traffic back to blue.Glossary entry.
Endpoints: Application Load Balancers, Network Load Balancers, EC2 instances, or Elastic IP addresses. Endpoint weights control the share of traffic each endpoint gets.
Health checkA regular test, such as a request to a web page, that a load balancer, an Auto Scaling group, or Route 53 makes to see whether a resource is working. Unhealthy resources stop receiving traffic or are replaced.Glossary entry and failover: Global Accelerator continuously monitors endpoint health and instantly directs new connections to another available endpoint when one becomes unhealthy, including in another Region.
Client IP preservation: ALB, EC2, and NLB (with Security groupA stateful virtual firewall for network interfaces, such as an EC2 instance's, whose rules can only allow traffic. Return traffic for allowed connections is allowed automatically, and a rule can refer to another security group instead of IP addresses.Glossary entry) endpoints can see the original client IP address.
BYOIP: use IPv4 addresses from your own range as the static entry points.

Because the IP addresses never change, clients, firewalls, and allow lists are configured once, and you can add or move Regional endpoints behind them.

Global Accelerator. Users connect over TCP or UDP to an accelerator with two static IP addresses. The accelerator sends traffic to an Application Load Balancer in Region A with a traffic dial of 80 percent and to one in Region B with a traffic dial of 20 percent.

Security, resilience, performance, and cost

Security

Clients reach only the accelerator's static IPs at the AWS edge, and endpoints such as internal ALBs don't need to be internet-facing.

Resilience

Multi-Region endpoint groups with health checks give fast failover that doesn't wait for DNS TTL (Time to live)How long something stays valid before it expires. A DNS record or cached item can be reused until its TTL runs out, then is fetched again; in DynamoDB, a TTL attribute deletes items after a set time.Glossary entry to expire.

Performance

TCP connections from clients are terminated at the edge, with new connections to your endpoints, which lowers LatencyThe time between sending a request and receiving the response, usually measured in milliseconds. Distance and processing add to it; caching and serving users from nearby locations reduce it.Glossary entry and increases throughput.

Cost

A fixed hourly fee for each accelerator, plus a Data Transfer-Premium (DT-Premium) fee on top of standard data transfer rates, calculated on the dominant direction of your traffic.

Global Accelerator, CloudFront, or Route 53?

If the requirement is	Choose
Static anycast IPs for a global application	AWS Global Accelerator
Fast multi-Region failover, not dependent on DNS caching	AWS Global Accelerator
UDP or non-HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)The protocol that web browsers and APIs use to send requests, such as GET and POST, and receive responses. On its own it is not encrypted; HTTPS adds TLS.Glossary entry TCP applications worldwide	AWS Global Accelerator
Cache HTTP content at the edge	Amazon CloudFront
Route users with DNS by latency, location, or weight	Amazon Route 53
Send specific users to a specific EC2 instance and port	Custom routing accelerator

Reverse mindmap: when the question points here

Is it AWS Global Accelerator?

Yes, when the question says
- Two static IPs for a global app leads to Global Accelerator
- Customers allow-list fixed IPs leads to Global Accelerator static IPs
- Regional failover in seconds, not DNS leads to Global Accelerator health checks
- Improve performance for UDP gaming or IoT leads to Global Accelerator
Configure it
- Shift 10% of traffic to a new Region leads to Traffic dial
- Split traffic between endpoints leads to Endpoint weights
- Keep the client IP at the ALB leads to Client IP preservation
- Map users to a specific instance and port leads to Custom routing accelerator
- Use our own IP range leads to BYOIP
No, when the question says
- Cache static content leads to CloudFront
- DNS routing policies leads to Route 53

Key takeaways

Global Accelerator provides two static anycast IPv4 addresses (four for dual stack) that route users over the AWS global network.
Standard accelerators pick the best healthy endpoint (ALB, NLB, EC2, or Elastic IP) across Regions; custom routing accelerators map users to specific instances and ports.
Health checks give instant failover for new connections; traffic dials and weights shift traffic.
It supports TCP and UDP; choose CloudFront for caching and Route 53 for DNS routing.