AWS Global Accelerator Global Accelerates Cross-border Network Optimization: The Ultimate Solution to "Caton, Packet Loss, and Circle" in Multinational Networks
If you run a multinational business-whether it's cross-border e-commerce, offshore games, multinational SaaS software, or an audio and video platform for global users-you must have been tortured by the following maddening complaints:
"Why do I have to wait several seconds for the web page to circle around when I visit a server in Tokyo in the United States?"
"When the overseas service of the game reaches the peak at night, the delay will soar to 300ms, and the connection will be disconnected and reconnected at any time!"
"Overseas offices transmit reports to China, often losing packets in half and reporting errors......"
In the public network environment, cross-border network transmission is like a "no navigation, all by chance" provincial road long-distance travel. Your data packets have to pass through the routers of countless different operators, cross various international submarine optical cable nodes, and experience public network congestion, link detours, and even occasional packet loss.
Since the ordinary Internet public network is so unreliable, is there any way to buy a "global high-speed rail business seat" for cross-border traffic so that it can take an exclusive, non-congested high-speed channel?
This is exactly
AWS Global Accelerator (AGA)
The specialty. Today we will use the vernacular, do not talk about virtual architecture nouns, in-depth to pick up its optimization principles, core advantages, and how to use it to save your cross-border network.
1. Core Pain Point: Why Is Public Network Cross-border So Slow?
Before we can understand how AWS accelerates, we need to see who the "enemy" is.
When a user in London wants to access a server that you have deployed in the AWS Tokyo Region (ap-northeast-1), the general route of the packet, without any optimization, looks like this:
[London user] -> (UK local operator public network) -> (transatlantic cable) -> (US local operator public network) -> (trans-Pacific cable) -> (Japanese operator public network) -> [Tokyo server]
This route has three fatal problems:
Night long sleep (multi-hop routing): data packets are "relayed" between dozens of public network routers in different countries. As long as one of the routers is blocked, the entire link will be stuck.
Dynamic detour: The routing protocol (BGP) of the public network is dynamic. It is possible to take the fastest path in one second. When a node jitters in the next second, the data packet will be bypassed more than half of the world.
Packet loss in the Great Navigation Era: The transmission distance of cross-ocean optical cables is extremely long. Once the public network peaks, the packet loss rate will soar. For the TCP protocol, packet loss means retransmission, and retransmission means that the delay increases exponentially.
2. Break: How AWS Global Accelerator Reduced Dimension Strike?
The way AWS Global Accelerator address this issue is simple and crude:
Try to shorten your hanging around the public network.
The time, let you go out on my "private highway".
How does it do it? Thanks to the underlying infrastructure that Amazon has spent a lot of money building around the world--
AWS Global Backbone Network
.
When you enable AGA, the route for London users to visit your website changes to this:
Nearest Anycast (Anycast IP):AGA will assign you two globally fixed Anycast IP addresses. The amazing thing about these two IPs is that all AWS edge sites (edge Location) around the world announce these two IPs. When a London user initiates a request, the network automatically directs him to his nearest London AWS edge location.
One second access to the network: the user's traffic directly enters the threshold of AWS after only a short "last kilometer" walk in the local public network in London, UK.
Backbone Raging: After entering the AWS edge, the data packets leave the chaotic public Internet. It will enter the global optical cable backbone network built by AWS and completely controlled by Amazon itself. There is no interference from other idle public network traffic on this highway, and the route is the shortest straight-line path after fine optimization.
Directly to the end: Packets travel all the way through the AWS internal network, directly to servers (EC2 instances, ALB load balancers, or S3 buckets) in Tokyo.
💡the metaphor of image
Traditional cross-country visits, like your own
Cycling from London across the mountains to Tokyo
, the road may have a flat tire, go the wrong way, be stopped by traffic police.
With AWS Global Accelerator, it's like you
I took a taxi in front of London's house (take the public network to the edge station) and took the supersonic train (AWS backbone network) directly to Tokyo one minute later.
.
What is the strength of 3. AGA compared to traditional schemes?
At this time, some technical friends may ask:
"Doesn't that sound like CDN (Content Delivery Network) or Anti-DDoS High? What's the difference between it and Amazon CloudFront?"
This is indeed a place where many people are easily confused. Let's make a simple comparison:
1. Its core difference with CDN (such as CloudFront)
CloudFront(CDN): mainly relies on "caching" static resources (such as images, videos, JS/CSS files). If the user gets the cache at the edge site, he does not need to go to the source site. However, if you encounter pure dynamic interactions that cannot be cached (such as game operation instructions, real-time transactions, API interface calls), the acceleration effect of CDN will be greatly reduced.
Global Accelerator(AGA): It does not cache anything, it is only responsible for accelerating the network transmission itself. Whether your data is static or dynamic, or even whether you use HTTP protocol (such as UD for games
P, TCP for database synchronization), it can be transported to you by backbone network.
2. Two thunder-moving "global fixed static IP"
Conventional cross-region high availability solutions often rely on DNS resolution (such as Route 53 geolocation-based resolution). But DNS has a fatal weakness:
Cache Latency (TTL)
. When your Tokyo server goes down, you want to cut traffic to Singapore, and after changing DNS records, it may take several minutes or even hours for operators around the world to update their caches. During this period, some overseas users will still visit the dead IP.
While the AGA offers two
Global fixed static IP
. You only need to write these two IP's in the white list of your client, App and overseas office firewall, and you don't need to change them any more.
If your back-end Tokyo server is down, AGA's internal health check will find it within 30 seconds and seamlessly switch traffic to the backup Singapore server within seconds.
Since the IP has not changed at all, the user's App does not even need to be disconnected and reconnected, thus realizing the real instantaneous self-healing of the fault.
4. cross-border network optimization: AGA typical application scenarios.
In the actual corporate sea business, AGA usually plays the role of "savior" in the following three scenarios:
1. Real-time online game with global service
The sea game is most afraid of delay and jitter (Jitter). The player is in Europe and the United States, and the server is in Singapore. As long as the packet is lost, the picture will teleport and Caton. by AGA.
UDP acceleration capabilities
The packet loss rate of cross-border data packets can be reduced to close to zero, and the delay curve changes from a "roller coaster" to a smooth straight line, greatly improving the retention rate of players.
2. Multi-regional microservices and API acceleration.
A lot of multinational SaaS software is deployed around the world. Clients in Europe need to make frequent calls to the backend API of the Asian headquarters. AGA can significantly shorten the TCP three-way handshake time. Because the client completes a TCP handshake (TCP Termination) with the nearest AWS edge site and then maintains a long connection on the AWS backbone network, the response speed of the API is usually improved.
40% to 60%
.
3. Cross-border data synchronization of enterprises
Overseas branches need to regularly upload TB-level logs, database backups, or ERP data to the domestic headquarters. Public network transmission of large files is most afraid of interruption. With AGA backbone network escort, cross-border file transfer speed can not only double, but also ensure the continuity and stability of transmission.
Conclusion
Cross-border network optimization is a fine and expensive science. In the past, in order to obtain a stable cross-border dedicated line, enterprises often need to apply for expensive MPLS dedicated line from major telecom operators, with long approval cycle, high price and lack of flexibility.
Amazon Global Accelera
Tor has made this large-scale factory-level "global backbone network capability" a standard service in the cloud. You don't need to modify a line of code, and you don't need to argue with operators in various countries. Just by checking a few buttons on the console, you can connect an exclusive "green network channel" for users around the world ". In this era of "user experience is everything", using AGA to help your cross-border business eliminate the "circle" of a few seconds is often the key to widening the gap with competitors.
