AWS launches new local zone in LA

AWS announced a new local zone today in LA, designed to provide customers in southern California with a set of higher bandwidth, lower latency compute resources. It’s not a coincidence that this area is the epicenter of the entertainment industry.

Having a local zone gives LA-area companies, whether that’s related to video processing, gaming, ad tech or machine learning, access to a much more localized set of resources, wrote Jeff Barr of AWS in a blog post announcing the new zone.

“Today we are launching a Local Zone in Los Angeles, California. The Local Zone is a new type of AWS infrastructure deployment that brings select AWS services very close to a particular geographic area. This Local Zone is designed to provide very low latency (single-digit milliseconds) to applications that are accessed from Los Angeles and other locations in Southern California,” Barr wrote

As he pointed out, LA is home to a lot of companies that require this kind of local compute for gaming, 3D modeling and rendering, video processing (including real-time color correction), video streaming and media production pipelines.

The LA zone is actually part of a broader US West (Oregon) Region. Those customers who want to take advantage of the new zone will have to opt in by selecting it in the Local Zones console. It will be billed separately, but also includes access to savings plans.