Visual overview
Outposts extends supported AWS infrastructure on premises while linking to an AWS Region.
Technical reference
Outposts changes workload location while preserving supported AWS operating models.
AWS-managed infrastructure runs on site for latency, locality, or residency needs.
An Outpost links to a parent Region for management and integration.
Architecture must account for local and parent-Region connectivity.
Service/feature availability depends on current Outposts capabilities.
AWS infrastructure at the customer site
AWS Outposts extends AWS infrastructure, selected services, APIs and tools into customer premises. An Outpost is AWS compute and storage capacity installed at an approved customer site and operated as an extension of an associated AWS Region. Workloads can therefore use familiar AWS resource models while keeping selected compute and data physically close to on-premises systems.
This is different from simply running ordinary customer-owned servers and calling them hybrid cloud. AWS owns and manages the Outposts hardware and integrates it with the AWS control plane. Customers still provide and operate the physical site requirements such as facility space, power and network connectivity according to the Outposts form factor and service requirements.
Region, service link and local networking
Each Outpost is associated with an AWS Region and extends an Availability Zone from that Region. A service link connects the Outpost back to its Region for management and service communication. Outposts rack deployments can use a local gateway to communicate with on-premises networks, allowing local workloads to reach nearby systems without routing every interaction through the parent Region.
You can create VPC subnets on an Outpost and launch supported AWS resources into those subnets. Supported resource sets vary by Outposts form factor and Region, so architecture should always check current service availability instead of assuming that every Regional AWS service can run locally. EC2 and ECS are central supported compute examples, while other capabilities depend on the selected Outposts configuration.
When it fits—and when a Region fits better
Outposts is designed for workloads that need local access to on-premises data and applications, consistent hybrid operations, or low-latency processing at a customer-controlled location. It can be useful for systems that cannot place all processing in an AWS Region but still benefit from common AWS APIs, management patterns and infrastructure.
A normal AWS Region is simpler when local physical proximity is not a requirement. Outposts introduces site, connectivity and finite local-capacity considerations that Regional elastic capacity does not have in the same way. The decision should therefore begin with latency, data-processing location, hybrid dependency and service-availability requirements rather than with a general preference to keep servers on premises.
Key takeaways
- 01
AWS Outposts places AWS-managed compute and storage infrastructure at a customer site.
- 02
An Outpost is associated with a parent Region and uses a service link for Regional connectivity.
- 03
Supported AWS services can run in Outpost subnets close to local systems, but availability varies by configuration and Region.
- 04
Choose Outposts for genuine local-latency, local-processing or hybrid requirements; otherwise Regional AWS infrastructure is usually simpler.
Official AWS sources
Use these primary AWS resources for the source material behind this article and for deeper reference.