Posted On: Jun 22, 2022

Today, AWS announced AWS Direct Connect support for all AWS Local Zones in the United States. Your network traffic now takes the shortest path between Direct Connect point of presence (PoP) locations and AWS resources running in Local Zones. This feature reduces the distance network traffic must travel, decreasing latency and helping make applications more responsive.

With Direct Connect, you can transfer data privately and directly from your data center, office, or colocation environment into and out of AWS. Connections through Direct Connect bypass the public internet to help decrease network congestion and unpredictability. Local Zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that places compute, storage, database, and other select AWS services close to large population and industry centers. Previously, connectivity from a Direct Connect PoP to a resource running in a Local Zone, except for the Los Angeles Local Zone, would flow through the parent AWS Region of the Local Zone. With today’s release, network traffic takes the shortest path between Direct Connect PoPs and Local Zones in the United States, helping you deliver applications that require single-digit millisecond latency to end-users or on-premises resources.

You do not need to make any changes to your Direct Connect deployments to benefit from these new capabilities. To learn more, please visit the Direct Connect overview page and the Local Zones website.