Introduction

In a globally distributed application, not all users should be treated the same. There are certain scenarios that would prompt you to block access to your web application:

1. Regulatory & Legal Compliance

2. Licensing & Content Distribution Rights

3. Fraud Prevention & Security Hardening

4. Service Availability Limitations

5. Beta Testing / Controlled Rollouts

6. Legal Liability & Risk Mitigation

7. Business Strategy / Market Focus

This is where Amazon Route 53 Geolocation Routing Policy becomes essential.

In this post, we’ll explore how to route traffic based on the user’s geographic location, with hands-on steps.

What is Geolocation Routing?

Geolocation routing allows you to route traffic based on:

• Continent

• Country

• (in some cases in Ukraine) subdivisions

Prerequisites

• Hosted zone in Route 53

• At least 2 resources (EC2, ALB, etc.) in different regions

• Public IPs or DNS endpoints

Step-by-Step Implementation

Step 1: Create First Record (Frankfurt)

• Record name: geolocation

• Type: A

• Value: IP of Europe server

• Routing policy: Geolocation

• Location: Countries/Regions→ Germany

• Record ID: Choose what tag to use (Germany Server)

Step 2: Create Second Record (North Virginia)

• Record name: geolocation

• Type: A

• Value: IP of the North Virginia server

• Routing policy: Geolocation

• Location: Default (any traffic that is not from Germany gets routed to the North Virginia server)

• Record ID: Every other traffic worldwide - North Virginia

Testing Geolocation Routing

I will use my proxy set to Germany to test out whether DNS works on resolver location.

So, my traffic now seems to come from Germany - Frankfurt

When I type http://geolocation.cloudproject.click it directs me to the German server

If I use my real traffic from Kenya, it directs me to the North Virginia server thus proving that the geolocation routing policy works