What is AWS Outposts? - AWS Outposts
Key conceptsAWS resources on OutpostsPricing

What is AWS Outposts?

AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to customer premises. By providing local access to AWS managed infrastructure, AWS Outposts enables customers to build and run applications on premises using the same programming interfaces as in AWS Regions, while using local compute and storage resources for lower latency and local data processing needs.

An Outpost is a pool of AWS compute and storage capacity deployed at a customer site. AWS operates, monitors, and manages this capacity as part of an AWS Region. You can create subnets on your Outpost and specify them when you create AWS resources such as EC2 instances, EBS volumes, ECS clusters, and RDS instances. Instances in Outpost subnets communicate with other instances in the AWS Region using private IP addresses, all within the same VPC.

Note

You can't connect an Outpost to another Outpost or Local Zone that is within the same VPC.

For more information, see the AWS Outposts product page.

Key concepts

These are the key concepts for AWS Outposts.

  • Outpost site – The customer-managed physical buildings where AWS will install your Outpost. A site must meet the facility, networking, and power requirements for your Outpost.

  • Outpost capacity – Compute and storage resources available on the Outpost. You can view and manage the capacity for your Outpost from the AWS Outposts console.

  • Outpost equipment – Physical hardware that provides access to the AWS Outposts service. The hardware includes racks, servers, switches, and cabling owned and managed by AWS.

  • Outposts racks – An Outpost form factor that is an industry-standard 42U rack. Outposts racks include rack-mountable servers, switches, a network patch panel, a power shelf and blank panels.

  • Outposts ACE racks – The Aggregation, Core, Edge (ACE) rack acts as a network aggregation point for multi-rack Outpost deployments. The ACE rack reduces the number of physical networking port and logical interface requirements by providing connectivity between multiple Outpost compute racks in your logical Outposts and your on-premise network.

    You must install an ACE rack if you have four or more compute racks. If you have less than four compute racks but plan to expand to four or more racks in the future, we recommend that you install an ACE rack at the earliest.

    For additional information on ACE racks, see Scaling AWS Outposts rack deployments with ACE racks.

  • Outposts servers – An Outpost form factor that is an industry-standard 1U or 2U server, which can be installed in a standard EIA-310D 19 compliant 4 post rack. Outposts servers provide local compute and networking services to sites that have limited space or smaller capacity requirements.

  • Outpost owner – The account owner for the account that places the AWS Outposts order. After AWS engages with the customer, the owner may include additional points of contact. AWS will communicate with the contacts to clarify orders, installation appointments, and hardware maintenance and replacement. Contact AWS Support Center if the contact information changes.

  • Service link – Network route that enables communication between your Outpost and its associated AWS Region. Each Outpost is an extension of an Availability Zone and its associated Region.

  • Local gateway (LGW) – A logical interconnect virtual router that enables communication between an Outposts rack and your on-premises network.

  • Local network interface – A network interface that enables communication from an Outposts server and your on-premises network.

AWS resources on Outposts

You can create the following resources on your Outpost to support low-latency workloads that must run in close proximity to on-premises data and applications:

Compute
Resource type Racks Servers

Amazon EC2 instances

 Yes Yes

Amazon ECS clusters

 Yes Yes

Amazon EKS nodes

 Yes No
Database and analytics
Resource type Racks Servers

Amazon ElastiCache nodes (Redis cluster, Memcached cluster)

 Yes No

Amazon EMR clusters

 Yes No

Amazon RDS DB instances

 Yes No
Networking
Resource type Racks Servers

App Mesh Envoy proxy

 Yes Yes

Application Load Balancers

 Yes No
Amazon VPC subnets Yes Yes
Amazon Route 53 Yes No
Storage
Resource type Racks Servers

Amazon EBS volumes

 Yes No

Amazon S3 buckets

Yes No
Other AWS services
Service Racks Servers
AWS IoT Greengrass Yes Yes
Amazon SageMaker Edge Manager Yes Yes

Pricing

Pricing is based on your order details. When you place an order, you can choose from a variety of Outpost configurations, each providing a combination of Amazon EC2 instance types and storage options. You also choose a contract term and a payment option. Pricing includes the following:

  • Outposts racks - Delivery, installation, infrastructure service maintenance, software patches and upgrades, and rack removal.

  • Outposts servers - Delivery, infrastructure service maintenance, and software patches and upgrades. You are responsible for the installation and packing the server for return.

You are billed for shared resources and any data transfer from the AWS Region to the Outpost. You are also billed for data transfers that AWS performs to maintain availability and security.

For pricing based on location, configuration, and payment option, see: