Every day, millions of developers use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create innovative applications that solve real world problems, leveraging the full power and capabilities of the AWS ecosystem. It has always been Vapor IO’s vision that edge complements cloud, and we’re proving it out today by working with Amazon and Crown Castle to directly connect AWS centralized data centers (USWEST and USEAST) to Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge, a nationwide platform of city-scale data centers at the edge of the wireless cellular network.
Today, we are excited to announce that we’re working with Amazon and Crown Castle to bring AWS to the Kinetic Edge via Crown Castle’s high-speed Cloud Connect, which utilizes Amazon Direct Connect services. This lets our Kinetic Edge customers benefit from our high-performance, ‘next-door locality’ edge infrastructure while tapping in to the power, familiarity and convenience of today’s clouds, such as AWS. When combined with Crown Castle’s high-speed Cloud Connect fiber, the Kinetic Edge lets AWS developers build applications that span the entire continuum from core to edge. By enabling new classes of applications at the edge, we make it possible for any AWS developer to unlock the next generation of real-time, innovative use cases.
By extending AWS apps to the Kinetic Edge, developers can lower latency by as much as 75%. Connecting workloads and data at the Kinetic Edge with workloads and data in centralized AWS data centers makes it possible to build edge applications that leverage the full power of AWS. You can do low-latency processing in data centers mere miles away from end users and their devices but also connect back to a central AWS location. The foundation of this new capability is AWS Direct Connect, which allows Crown Castle and Vapor IO to directly connect workloads in any Kinetic Edge location to Amazon’s USEAST and USWEST data centers.
“By directly connecting AWS services to applications at the Kinetic Edge, we’re bringing the full power of the cloud to the last mile wireless network, delivering the foundation of a true edge-to-core architecture for developers,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. The Kinetic Edge is online today in multiple sites across Chicago, and is rolling out a national footprint that will reach over 20 major US markets by the end of 2020, with plans for 80 additional markets. The first six of these markets are deploying in 2019, and include: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Seattle with more to come.
AWS customer Network Next will use the Kinetic Edge and Crown Castle’s Cloud Connect to run mobile edge workloads that deliver improved performance for multiplayer mobile games on AWS. Network Next leverages bare metal servers running on the Kinetic Edge, provided by Kinetic Edge Alliance partner Packet, in order to run highly specialized packet processors that leverage AWS Direct Connect to enhance gaming performance. “Our customers run a massive number of game servers on AWS and we work with them to improve performance for mobile clients via the Kinetic Edge,” said Glenn Fiedler, CEO of Network Next. “As gaming companies increasingly look to bring high-speed multiplayer games like Fortnite to mobile platforms, our sophisticated edge processing connects players back to AWS in the most optimal fashion, giving a true edge-to-core experience.”
Developers building applications at the Kinetic Edge will have access to the full suite of AWS cloud computing services including Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). These capabilities leverage Crown Castle’s Cloud Connect service, which provides a hosted 1-Gbps to 10-Gbps private fiber connection between the Kinetic Edge and AWS. Crown Castle offers one of the largest fiber footprints in the country, and has been an early pioneer in building the Kinetic Edge with us.
Extending AWS to the Kinetic Edge ensures any AWS developer can be a part of the oncoming wave of interactive, real-time, low-latency edge-native applications such as autonomous vehicle control and city-scale IoT, that look certain to be game-changers in the near future. At the Kinetic Edge, the foundation of the next-generation internet, these applications can be brought to life with unprecedented performance, cost and locality
