Amazon Web Services (AWS) has extended cross-region connectivity to its services through virtual private cloud (VPC) endpoints.

Where it once only supported intra-AWS region connectivity, AWS PrivateLink now enables users to access VPC endpoint services from private subnets. While these aren’t AWS-managed, traffic is still kept on the AWS network, thus eschewing the need for an Internet Gateway.

The cloud giant said users can secure endpoints with VPC endpoint policies and security groups, with consistent security whether accessing services in the same region or elsewhere.

The cross-region PrivateLink (XRPL) connectivity feature currently supports services such as Amazon S3, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), and Amazon Data Firehose, with AWS promising more services are to follow.

The hyperscaler added that cross-region connectivity to its services in other AWS Regions does not support Zonal DNS, where the internet's domain name system (DNS) namespace is placed under the control of an enterprise or administrator.

“Only regional DNS records are generated for these endpoints. This aligns with resiliency guidance and ensures your endpoints can benefit from PrivateLink managed failover feature,” explained AWS principal solutions architect Anandprasanna Gaitonde.

Cross-region connectivity is only supported for interface endpoints, added Gaitonde, and is not capable with Gateway, Gateway Load Balancer, and Resource endpoint types.

The service also applies standard PrivateLink pricing for hours and data processed, whether services were used in a local or remote AWS Region. In addition, there are “interface endpoint owner standard EC2 inter-region data transfer charges for each gigabyte transferred inter-region, regardless of data transfer directionality of the data transfer,” Gaitonde added.

AWS also launched VPN Concentrator, a new feature aiming to streamline multi-site connectivity for distributed enterprises to access AWS workloads.

Available as part of the AWS Site-to-Site VPN service, the function is for users connecting 25 or more remote sites to their AWS provision, where each site needs bandwidth capacity under 100 Mb/s.

The VPN Concentrator connects multiple remote sites through one attachment to AWS Transit Gateway using IP Security (IPSec) tunnels, and is available for all AWS commercial Regions and AWS GovCloud (U.S.) Regions where AWS Site-to-Site VPN is available.