AWS Outposts

AWS Outposts is a family of fully managed solutions delivering AWS infrastructure and AWS services to virtually any on-premises or edge location for a consistent hybrid experience. Outposts allow you to extend and run AWS services on premises, and are available in a number of form factors, including multiple rack deployments:

• 1U Outposts server

• 2U Outposts server

• 42U Outposts rack

AWS Outposts extends the Amazon VPC in the on-premises network with the ability to connect to a broader range of AWS services in a nearby AWS Region (referred as the AWS home Region). Customers can use AWS APIs, tools, and security controls to run, manage, and secure applications. AWS maintains the hardware infrastructure and software patching as of regional operations.

Figure 29 – AWS Outposts form factors (1U, 2U, and 42U)

Outposts resources can be shared with other AWS accounts or organizational units (OUs) within the same AWS organization. The following services are available on Outposts:

Figure 30 – AWS Outposts – Some of the supported services

Outposts 42U rack to AWS home Region connectivity

Network connectivity of Outposts 42U rack with the AWS Region can be achieved either via private WAN access (using AWS Direct Connect – Private Virtual Interface) or public WAN access (public internet connectivity via local internet service provider or AWS Direct Connect – Public Virtual Interface)

Figure 31 – AWS Outposts – Networking Architecture

Outposts 42U rack to on-premises network connectivity

Outposts 42U racks come with top-of-rack (TOR) switches, supporting link aggregation control protocol (LACP) to bundle multiple links from these TOR switches to the customer's on-premises devices. Outposts TOR switches comes preconfigured with BGP configurations and links are established when the customer configures BGP in the local devices.

Figure 32 – AWS Outposts – Local Gateway connectivity

Outposts servers (1U and 2U) are rack mountable servers ideal for edge locations with limited space or low-capacity requirements. Outposts servers are ideal for customers with low-latency or local data processing needs for on-premises locations like retail stores, branch offices, healthcare provider locations, or factory floors.

AWS delivers Outposts servers directly to the customer, and the customer's technical team or a preferred third-party vendor can install them. After the Outposts servers are connected to the on-premises network, AWS will remotely provision compute and storage resources so that you can start launching applications that require low-latency—bringing local data processing closer to end users and on-premises systems.