Bringing the cloud closer to end users in a metro area

In an increasingly connected world, the demand to access our devices and applications is 24/7. Immersive, real-time experiences like virtual workstations, AR/VR, smart cities, smart manufacturing, connected vehicles, real-time multiplayers, and so on, are on the rise. Companies who are providing these devices and apps need real-time responsiveness for their end users. In order to achieve such a feat, they need cloud services and infrastructure as close to their customers as possible. More and more companies are looking to take advantage of having the cloud closer to where their data and customers are located, including in major metropolitan areas. What if your company could access cloud infrastructure and services for these scenarios without needing to invest in expensive data centers or placing compute and storage in co-location facilities and edge locations?

Take for example, the world’s leading streaming entertainment service, Netflix, whose artists require graphics-intensive virtual workstations for rendering 3D models and animation. Content creators and artists typically require less than five-millisecond latency from their offices to satellite locations, which lets them handle workloads like live production and video editing while providing a jitter-free experience on both sides. With multiple artists needing to work on a rendering or animation at the same time, they need ultra-low latency access to their workstations to provide the best creative experience. By utilizing Intel-powered and cost-effective AWS compute resources in AWS Local Zones, Netflix can deploy reliable and low latency virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs) closer to their artists’ homes. As a result, Netflix was able to migrate portions of their content creation process to AWS Local Zones, while delivering a differentiated end-user experience for their artists.

AWS LOCAL ZONES

In major urban areas, your business can leverage cloud infrastructure and services located close to your end users to deliver applications that require ultra-low latency using AWS Local Zones. It’s easiest to think of a Local Zone as an extension of AWS Regions—they use the same AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) infrastructure that’s available in the cloud and feature the same Intel Xeon Scalable processors, as well as other AWS cloud services. Applications deployed in a Local Zone can also be configured to automatically scale as needed to meet demand, allowing your team to focus on building new and differentiated customer experiences. Now, you can effectively use cloud infrastructure and services at the edge to deliver your applications using AWS compute, storage, database, and other services. Suddenly, theoretical transactions and interactions become possible.

LOW LATENCY AND LOCAL DATA PROCESSING

AWS Local Zones open the door to new possibilities. They enable you to deliver innovative applications and services—like interactive gaming experiences that require single-digit millisecond latency. As a leading game hosting service provider, Edgegap can provide the best online experience for players by deploying game servers even closer to where the players are—elevating the gaming experience to new heights. For some of their clients, such as Triple Hill Interactive and their fighting game Die by the Blade, being able to host a worldwide 1-versus-1 online tournament in the best conditions is something they simply could not do using traditional service providers. For others, such as Agog and their fast-paced arena shooter Brutal Grounds, every match must be deployed in the best location for all players to provide a fair environment. AWS Local Zones provides Edgegap the flexibility to enhance the player experience for their game publisher customers in all these scenarios.

Local Zones can also support augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications by performing computation and analysis close to your end users. With connectivity back to your other workloads and to the full range of in-region services, you can manage everything through the same APIs and tool sets. Similarly, organizations can run compute-intensive simulations such as earth science explorations, genomics, financial risk modeling, and ship design close to local resources and end users. Every industry has its own requirements for low latency and local data processing. Together, these two elements provide rich, engaging experiences for end users by providing the lowest latency possible.

ACCELERATE YOUR CLOUD MIGRATION

Another use case for low latency cloud infrastructure and services in large metro centers is facilitating enterprise cloud migrations. It might not be possible to immediately shut down your data center and run everything from the cloud. Data privacy, residency, or sovereignty issues—or even legacy database architectures—may require some on-premises presence. But solutions exist that can help you get started. Moving your web front end to the cloud using AWS Local Zones will provide high-bandwidth, secure, low-latency access to back-end databases in your data center. This reduces the data center footprint needed for the front end of your stack and gives your business the opportunity to start the process of modernizing your applications and migrating to the cloud.

AWS LOCAL ZONES

AWS Local Zones are a type of AWS infrastructure deployment that places AWS compute, storage, database, and other select services close to highly populated cities, industries, and IT centers. This means that you’re able to take advantage of AWS infrastructure and services closer to where your applications need to be deployed. Local Zones bring all of the elasticity, scalability, and security benefits of the cloud directly to you, enabling you to deploy latency-sensitive applications closer to your end users and pay only for the resources you use—ultimately giving you a smooth, seamless, and reliable AWS experience. What opportunities will you unleash with the edge?

Find out more about hybrid cloud at AWS powered by Intel

AWS and Intel’s 15-year relationship is continuously dedicated to developing, building, and supporting services that are designed to manage cost and complexity, accelerate business outcomes, and scale to meet current and future computing requirements. AWS hybrid solutions seamlessly extend the same AWS infrastructure, compute, services, and tools in the cloud, on premises, and at edge locations. Intel processors provide the foundation for many hybrid cloud computing services deployed on AWS. Amazon EC2 instances powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors have the largest breadth, global reach, and availability of compute instances across AWS geographies.