AWS Global Accelerator launches custom routing

AWS Global Accelerator announces custom routing accelerator, a new type of accelerator that allows you to use your own application logic to route user traffic to a specific Amazon EC2 destination, while still leveraging the benefits of Global Accelerator.

Global Accelerator is a networking service that improves your internet user performance and availability by using the AWS global network infrastructure. C ustomers including – The Trade Desk, Skyscanner, JoyCity, 8x8, New Relic, Flowplayer, Par Tech, and CrazyCall already use Global Accelerator to improve their end user’s experience. They use it for applications such as web applications, ad bidding, video streaming, Internet of Things, gaming, and Voice over IP. Global Accelerator’s standard accelerator automatically routes traffic to a healthy endpoint that’s nearest to your user. Standard accelerators are useful for a wide variety of scenarios such as A/B testing, blue-green deployments, API acceleration, and live video ingest.

Since standard accelerators are designed to load balance traffic, you cannot deterministically route multiple users to a specific EC2 destination behind your accelerator, as may be required for some use cases. One example use case is multi-player gaming applications where you want to assign multiple players to a single session on a game server based on factors such as geographic location, player skill, and gaming configuration. Other examples include VoIP, EdTech, and social media applications that assign multiple users to a specific media server to initiate voice, video, and messaging sessions.

Starting today, with a custom routing accelerator, you can route multiple users to a specific EC2 destination in a single or multiple AWS Regions by directing them to a unique port on your accelerator. This feature makes it easier to integrate Global Accelerator with your application logic, such as matchmaking servers or session border controllers (network devices that protect and regulate IP traffic flows for real-time communication workflows). With custom routing accelerators, you can now leverage AWS Global Accelerator as the single point of entry for your application while deterministically sending your user traffic to specific EC2 destinations in any AWS Region.

There is no additional charge to use custom routing accelerators in Global Accelerator. To learn more, see the AWS Global Accelerator Developer Guide. To get started with AWS Global Accelerator, visit our webpage.