AWS Regions, Availability Zones and Edge Locations explained

AWS has developed and created its highly available global infrastructure allowing users to deploy and manage their estates all across the world through the use of the following geographical components

• Regions
• Availability Zones
• Edge Locations

When architecting and designing your infrastructure it’s important to know where your data is being stored and where your instances and services are located.  This is fundamental when designing and implementing a highly available and scalable network with low latency that abides by any data laws that may be in operation.

If you are studying for the AWS certifications it’s important to know the differences between Regions/Availability Zones and Edge Locations.

Available Regions

Your account determines the regions that are available to you. For example:

   

                           

• An AWS account provides multiple regions so that you can launch Amazon EC2 instances in locations that meet your requirements. For example, you might want to launch instances in Europe to be closer to your European customers or to meet legal requirements.
• An AWS GovCloud (US) account provides access to the AWS GovCloud (US) region only. For more information, see AWS GovCloud (US) Region.
• An Amazon AWS (China) account provides access to the China (Beijing) region only.   

   

The following table lists the regions provided by an AWS account. You can't describe or     access additional regions from an AWS account, such as AWS GovCloud (US) or China (Beijing).

   

Code	Name
us-east-1	US East (N. Virginia)
us-east-2	US East (Ohio)
us-west-1	US West (N. California)
us-west-2	US West (Oregon)
ca-central-1	Canada (Central)
eu-central-1	EU (Frankfurt)
eu-west-1	EU (Ireland)
eu-west-2	EU (London)
eu-west-3	EU (Paris)
ap-northeast-1	Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
ap-northeast-2	Asia Pacific (Seoul)
ap-northeast-3	Asia Pacific (Osaka-Local)
ap-southeast-1	Asia Pacific (Singapore)
ap-southeast-2	Asia Pacific (Sydney)
ap-south-1	Asia Pacific (Mumbai)
sa-east-1	South America (São Paulo)

What is an Availability Zone?

Availability zones are effectively different Data Centres located within a Region.  Each AZ (Availability Zone) is completely independent of others which enable them to reside in different areas within the same Region providing a level of Business Continuity in the event of a disaster.  All AZ’s within the same region are linked by extremely low latency connections allowing for the built in high availability features from many of AWS services such as S3, RDS etc to communicate with each other.

Utilising multiple AZ’s when architecting your network is essential when designing a highly available network.  Deploying infrastructure across more than one allows you to ensure your service remains operational should an AZ service go down unexpectedly.

The below shows a logical diagram of the EU Ireland Region which has 3 different AZ’s (eu-west-1a, eu-west-1b and eu-west-1c) all connected by multiple low latency links

What is an Edge Location

Edge locations are used in conjunction with the AWS CloudFront service which is a global Content Delivery Network service (more information on CloudFront can be found here).  Edge Locations are deployed across the world in multiple locations to reduce latency for traffic served over CloudFront and as a result are usually located in highly populated areas.

The below Edge Locations currently exist (as of July 2015)

North America:

Ashburn, VA (3), Atlanta, GA, Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (2), Hayward, CA, Jacksonville, FL, Los Angeles, CA (2), Miami, FL, New York, NY (3), Newark, NJ, Palo Alto, CA, San Jose, CA, Seattle, WA, South Bend, IN, St. Louis, MO

South America:

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, São Paulo, Brazil

EMEA:

Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2), Dublin, Ireland, Frankfurt, Germany (3), London, England (3), Madrid, Spain, Marseille, France, Milan, Italy, Paris, France (2), Stockholm, Sweden, and Warsaw, Poland

Asia Pacific:

Chennai, India, Hong Kong, China (2), Manila, the Philippines, Melbourne, Australia, Mumbai, India, Osaka, Japan, Seoul, Korea (2), Singapore (2), Sydney, Australia, Taipei, Taiwan, Tokyo, Japan (2)

As you can see from below, many of the Edge Locations are located some distance away from some of the Regions discussed earlier.  Edge Locations are independent of Regions and Availability Zones.

Image courtesy of http://aws.amazon.com/security/sharing-the-security-responsibility/

Can I get any Service in any Region?

The simple answer is ‘no’, not all services are currently available in all regions.  However AWS are constantly releasing new updates and increasing the availability of their services across the globe so this is constantly evolving.  The best way to find out if the service you require exists in the region you want to deploy your infrastructure is to check the AWS Regional Product Services site.

Selecting a Region for a resource within the AWS Console

From within the AWS Console you can select the region you want to deploy your Service in.  Once you have logged into the Console and are presented with the AWS dashboard, select the service you require, such as EC2.

From within the dashboard of the EC2 service you can change the Region in the top right corner by clicking on the currently select Region:

A dropdown list with then appear allowing you to select the most appropriate Region for your needs

When selecting your Region it’s generally best practise to host your infrastructure as close to the end users as possible to reduce latency.

Once you have selected the Region for your Service you wish to deploy your infrastructure in you can then deploy your EC2 instances.  During your deployment of your EC2 instances at the Configure Instance Details screen you will be prompted to select an Availability Zone that resides within that Region.

Architecting your applications and services across multiple Availability Zones and multiple Regions provides is best practise when designing a highly available infrastructure network.  Should any natural or other disaster at a particular AZ or Region you will be safe in the knowledge that your customers will not be affected due to your careful design.

By default many of the AWS services and functions operate across multiple AZs by design for these very same reasons, such as S3, RDS Multi AZ, ELB, AutoScaling to name but a few.

AWS Certification – All you need to know

Over the last one year or so, I’ve met a lot of people who have varying degrees of ambiguity around AWS certifications and which certification to choose for their specific nature of work or towards their career goals. This blog aims to demystify these ambiguities and provide clarity on what each AWS certification entails. For starters, let’s understand what AWS is and what certifications it provides:

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the popular cloud platform, houses a collection of cloud computing services, that have opened up hot career prospects in the world of cloud computing.  AWS has more than 70 services, spanning a wide range, including compute, storage, networking, database, analytics, application services, deployment, management, mobile, developer tools and Internet of things. AWS also offers cloud certifications that assert your ability to operate on the cloud. There are five different certifications and each of them open the floodgates to enhanced career opportunities. Depending on your interest and career goals, you can choose to engage yourself in any of the two certification tracks prescribed by AWS. Let me now break them down for you, one by one.

WS suite of certifications

AWS certifications are aligned to two broad streams – Solutions Architect and DevOps Engineer. The Solutions Architect stream is well defined; you should first bag the Solutions Architect – Associate certification followed by the Solutions Architect – Professional certification. But if you choose to certify yourself as an AWS DevOps Engineer, you have to either clear the Developer – Associate certification or the System Operations (SysOps) Administrator – Associate certifications. Of course, you should choose based on your current job or the stream of specialization you aspire for.

Alternatively, AWS allows you to containerize its suite of certifications into three blocks – Solutions Architect, Developer and SysOps. While Solutions Architect is an independent stream in itself, a Developer and/or SysOps Associate certification can lead you to a DevOps Engineer certification.

I have good news for you. The associate certifications of Solutions Architect and Developer share 50% content between them. So if you prepare for one, you’ve pretty much prepared half of the other as well. While most people I’ve met feel that Developer is the easiest to crack, Solutions Architect makes you a master of almost all of AWS’ services and helps you understand all key concepts. SysOps, on the other hand, is an ideal starting point if you are currently working as an infrastructure/system admin and/or are managing VMs, storage or networking in your current job.

AWS Certification Job Prospects

According to Forbes, AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate is the number 1 certification program of 2016. In its global survey of top 15 certifications in 2016, Solutions Architect, with a median salary of $125,871, is the highest paying certification. Additionally, all of AWS’ certifications will help you earn salaries in excess of $100,000. Specific Solution Architect skills that recruiters look for include designing on AWS, selecting the appropriate AWS services for your business, ingress and egress of data to and from the AWS, estimating AWS costs and identifying cost-control measures for your organization.

Globally, there are more than 380,000 cloud computing jobs in the IT industry itself. With cloud computing pervading into almost every business vertical, the need for qualified and certified cloud professionals is ever-growing. AWS is currently leading the pack with most companies having invested in or planning to invest in AWS tools and services. This is a clear sign that good times are in store for you if you commit yourself to AWS.

Crack the AWS Exam!

Which AWS Certification should you choose?

Depending on your interest, career goal and experience, you can decide which certification to go for. It is important to note that the Associate-level certifications do not require to have any prior AWS experience. However, experts believe around 1 year of experience with any of the AWS tools will be a great help in cracking the exams faster. The three Professional exams mandate 2 or more years of hands-on experience on AWS, but Amazon takes your word for it and does not require you to furnish any proof of experience. Let me now explain what you will achieve with each of these certifications:

Do you wish to get certified as an AWS Solutions Architect already? Our live, instructor-led course will help you prepare for the exam by mastering concepts around EC2, EIP, ELB, EBS, S3, and lots more. Check out full details here.

AWS Development Certification Training is specially curated to help you crack the AWS exam and become a certified developer. This live, instructor-led course helps you master concepts like cloud essentials, models, services and mastering AWS services and much more. Click here to know more.

Tips and recommendations for AWS Certification

Now, here’s that part of the blog where I provide you a cheat sheet to ace your AWS certification. While each AWS certification has a different level of complexity, there are certain common tips that can help you become battle-ready.

• Do remember that you need to pay a fees of $150 to enroll for the Associate exams and $300 to enroll for the Professional exams.
• Questions are usually in multiple choice format with the pass percentage changing with every exam, based on statistical analysis by Amazon.
• An average Associate-level exam lasts for about 80 minutes with around 60 minutes, with a pass percentage of 60%.
• For effective practice prior to taking the exam, we recommend you sign up with Amazon and activate the AWS Free Tier, which includes 750 hours of both Linux and Windows instances with 30 GB of EBS storage each month for one year for new AWS customers.
• Utilize this space and time to get hands-on experience on AWS tools and operations. This is the most important aspect of the certifications, and the easiest ways to understand core concepts.
• Additionally, you can check out the Exam Blueprint mentioned in the AWS website for detailed information on specific exam modules.