Edge locations are AWS data centers designed to deliver services with the lowest latency possible. Amazon has various data centers across the world. They’re closer to users than Regions or Availability Zones, in major cities, so the
responses can be so fast,
including services:
CloudFront : uses edge locations to copy the cache of the content that it serves, so the content is closer to users and can be delivered to them faster.
[When a user requests content from a CloudFront distribution, CloudFront routes the request to the nearest Edge Location based on the user's geographic location.]
Route 53: serves DNS responses from edge locations, so that DNS queries that originate nearby can resolve faster.
Web Application Firewall and AWS Shield, which filter traffic in edge locations to stop unwanted traffic.
Benefits:
Edge location reduces latency in a couple of ways:
There are many more edge locations than Regions. This means users are more likely to be close to an edge location, and get those low latency responses.
Global Reach: With Edge Locations spread worldwide, your application can reach users wherever they are.
Secure Delivery: Edge Locations support SSL/TLS encryption, ensuring secure transmission of data between the locations and users.
DDoS Protection: [Distributed denial of service]
Edge Locations are made with built-in DDoS protection, safeguarding your application from malicious attacks.
Uses Cases:
Edge location is used on different AWS features:
CloudFront -is the most commonly discussed use of edge locations. It’s a content delivery network that caches content in edge locations.
[used to serve static assets, speed up websites, and stream video.]
Web Application Firewall -and AWS Shield -provide a firewall and DDoS protection, respectively. These services filter traffic in edge locations so malicious or unwanted traffic.
How many edge locations -and where are they?
The documentation for CloudFront has a map that shows every edge location. From the data (May 2021), there are over 225 edge locations spread across 47 different countries.
In the recent last year, Amazon has announced 13 additional locations, including five new countries.
Conclusion:
So, AWS Edge Locations offer faster performance, improved content delivery, global service availability, scalability, DDoS protection, easy caching configuration, secure delivery, and integration with other AWS services.