Explain the purpose of AWS Global Accelerator.

AWS Global Accelerator is a service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that helps improve the availability and performance of applications by using static IP addresses, anycast routing, and the AWS global network infrastructure. Its primary purpose is to direct traffic over the AWS global network to optimize the routing and minimize latency, providing a better experience for end-users.

Here are some key purposes and benefits of AWS Global Accelerator:

1. Global Load Balancing: AWS Global Accelerator allows you to create a set of static Anycast IP addresses that serve as entry points to your applications. These IP addresses are announced from multiple AWS locations worldwide, allowing users to be directed to the nearest available healthy endpoint, improving the global availability and resilience of your applications.
2. High Availability: It enhances the availability of your applications by continuously monitoring the health of your endpoints (e.g., AWS Elastic Load Balancers, EC2 instances, or IP addresses) and automatically routing traffic away from unhealthy endpoints to healthy ones.
3. Performance Improvement: By leveraging the AWS global network infrastructure, Global Accelerator optimizes the routing of traffic to your applications. This can result in reduced latency and improved performance for end-users, as they are directed to the closest available endpoint.
4. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection: AWS Global Accelerator provides DDoS protection by using the AWS Shield service. It helps protect your applications from large-scale DDoS attacks by distributing the traffic across multiple AWS locations and mitigating threats.
5. Static IP Addresses: Global Accelerator provides static Anycast IP addresses that do not change, making it easier for clients to cache DNS records and simplifying application architecture. This is particularly useful in scenarios where dynamic IP addresses may cause complications.
6. Simple Management: AWS Global Accelerator offers a simple and centralized management interface where you can configure and manage your accelerators. You can easily add or remove endpoints, monitor their health, and make adjustments to the routing policies.

AWS Global Accelerator is designed to enhance the availability, performance, and security of your applications by leveraging a global network infrastructure, static IP addresses, and intelligent traffic routing. It is particularly beneficial for global applications with distributed users, providing a seamless and optimized experience.