AWS Global Infrastructure

Regions Availability Zones Edge Locations Local Zones Wavelength Zones Direct Connect Backbone Network

Glossary

Region: A geographic cluster of AWS data centers made up of multiple isolated Availability Zones. You pick a region to control where your apps and data live.
Availability Zone: One or more data centers inside a region with independent power, cooling and networking. Spreading across AZs protects apps from single-facility failures.
Local Zone: A small extension of a region placed in a large metro area, bringing compute and storage within single-digit milliseconds of end users.
Wavelength Zone: AWS compute embedded inside a telecom carrier's 5G network, so mobile traffic reaches your app without leaving the carrier's network.
Edge Location: A CloudFront point of presence that caches content close to viewers to speed up delivery. AWS operates 750+ of them worldwide.
Direct Connect: A colocation facility where customers link their own network to AWS over dedicated private fiber instead of the public internet.
Backbone Network: AWS's private global fiber network — terrestrial and subsea — that carries traffic between regions and edge sites without touching the public internet.

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