Outposts’ capacity is finite. As it is a physical installation, any expansion requires careful planning and potentially additional hardware. Customers need to monitor usage and predict future needs.
The elasticity inherent to the cloud is present in Local Zones. While there might be soft limits, scaling resources is more straightforward, not requiring hardware interventions.
Security
Since Outposts hardware resides within the customer’s facility, ensuring that physical access controls, surveillance, and auditability become their responsibility. Furthermore, customers must ensure robust firewall configurations for an AWS Outposts service link, as well as safeguard against on-premises network vulnerabilities.
AWS Local Zones, on the other hand, maintain a cloud-centric security paradigm, primarily focusing on data and access management. The shared responsibility model customers are used to in-region remains unmodified.
AWS Dedicated Local Zones
AWS Dedicated Local Zones is a new offering built at the request of two types of customers. First, it helps those with particularly stringent constraints imposed by compliance regimes that require physically separate infrastructure. Second, it is an option for customers who like the idea of a fully managed service that includes the physical layer but do not currently have an AWS Local Zone in their area.
The infrastructure involved can be deployed to any data center in which AWS is able to ensure they can deliver on their commitments around physical security, connectivity, and so forth. Because each implementation is by definition a customized offering, you must contact AWS to establish whether this service can meet your needs.
AWS Local Zones pricing
When considering pricing for AWS Local Zones, it’s important to note that costs for instances and other AWS services within a Local Zone may vary from their corresponding prices in the main region. For EC2 instances in Local Zones, options such as On-Demand, Spot Instances, and Savings Plans are available.
Data transfer fees within AWS Local Zones align with the rates of availability zones in the primary region. For example, transferring data between EC2 instances in the Los Angeles zone and Amazon S3 in the main region, US West (Oregon), incurs no charges. However, moving data to and from an EC2 instance in the Local Zone and an EC2 in the main region is priced at $0.01/GB each way.
For more specific, up-to-date information regarding pricing in AWS Local Zones, please refer to the AWS Local Zones pricing page on the AWS website.