What Is AWS Outposts? Hybrid Cloud Explained Simply

Organizations that require both the agility of the cloud and the control of on-premises infrastructure prioritize hybrid cloud solutions. AWS Outposts answers this demand. It allows companies to run AWS services and infrastructure directly in their data centers while retaining the consistent experience, APIs, and tooling they trust in the public cloud.

This article is for cloud architects, DevOps engineers, and IT teams that are assessing methods to combine the advantages of both platforms for workloads with specific latency, data residency, or compliance requirements.

If you’re new to the topic, you can explore the world of AWS and discover how it powers businesses through scalable and secure cloud solutions from our Introduction to Amazon Web Services tutorial and get hands-on with our AWS Cloud Technology and Services Concepts Course. 

What is AWS Outposts?

AWS Outposts is Amazon’s fully managed hybrid cloud offering that brings AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to virtually any on-premise or co-location facility. 

Outposts extends AWS consistency and management to physical locations where running everything in the public cloud may not be feasible. This feature is especially relevant for operations bound by regional compliance, ultra-low-latency needs, or the necessity to process sensitive data locally. 

By using Outposts, businesses avoid re-architecting applications or retraining teams: operations look, feel, and behave just like the AWS environments they are familiar with.

Key Components of AWS Outposts

To understand how Outposts delivers the cloud, we need to look at its key building blocks and how they work together to provide local AWS capabilities.

Outposts rack

At the heart of Outposts is a fully managed physical rack that bundles AWS compute, storage, and networking hardware. AWS delivers and installs the rack at your site, ready to plug in to your data center power, cooling, and network. 

Here is some general information about Outposts Racks:

• Dimensions: 80 inches (203 cm) high, 24 inches (61 cm) wide, and 48 inches (122 cm) deep.
• Power requirements: 5-15 kVA for first-generation racks; 10-30 kVA for second-generation compute racks.

Outposts racks are available for a 3-year term with payment options: All upfront, partial upfront, and no upfront, and monthly charges apply over the term, depending on the chosen payment plan.

Once installed, AWS remotely manages maintenance, patches, and hardware replacement, freeing customers from the grind of day-to-day hardware operations.

One of the best ways to learn AWS is through AWS projects. Discover other top learning tops in our How to Learn AWS From Scratch in 2025 tutorial.  

Local AWS services

Outposts brings core AWS services on-premises, providing familiar experiences. 

You can deploy EC2 for compute, EBS for local block storage, and managed containers with ECS and EKS. Recently, Outposts has started to support RDS for local databases and S3 on Outposts offers most core S3 APIs but has quota-related limits (50 TB per bucket, 100 buckets/account) and some region-only features such as S3 Batch Operations.

The local services are accessed and managed with the same AWS Management Console, CLI, and SDKs as the cloud, ensuring operational continuity for teams.

As of now, Outposts supports the following AWS services:

• Compute: Amazon EC2 (latest M7i, C7i, R7i and Graviton-based C6gd/C6id instance families).
• Storage: Amazon EBS (with local snapshots), Amazon S3 on Outposts. 
• Containers: Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS.
• Databases & Caching: Amazon RDS (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server), Amazon ElastiCache.
• Analytics & Big Data: Amazon EMR.
• Edge & IoT: AWS IoT Greengrass.
• Networking & Load Balancing: Amazon VPC, Route 53 Resolver, Application Load Balancer, AWS Direct Connect (Local Gateway).
• Disaster Recovery: AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery.

Our Top AWS Services for Developers tutorial explains many of these AWS services in depth. 

Networking and connectivity

A secure service link connects each Outpost back to its home region in AWS, typically using AWS Direct Connect or a VPN. This link drives management, monitoring, and data replication between on-premises infrastructure and the cloud. 

Networking is configured using familiar AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) tools: customers can route local or cloud-bound traffic dynamically to suit their latency and availability needs.

Understanding AWS networking is critical to acing a cloud computing interview. Prepare using our Top 50 AWS Interview Questions and Answers For 2025, covering basic, intermediate, and advanced AWS interview questions, along with questions based on real-world situations.

AWS Outposts Deployment Models and Use Cases

AWS Outposts is designed to adapt to a wide range of use cases and operational requirements.

AWS Outposts rack vs Outposts servers

While the flagship rack is a standard 42U offering for data centers, AWS also provides compact Outposts Servers for settings like remote offices or retail locations that do not require the scale of a full rack. 

Racks offer broader scalability and expandability, while Outposts Servers suit branch sites with lighter resource needs. 

Both models give consistent management and integration with AWS services, but their deployment decisions hinge on required performance, space, and local power or cooling options.

Outposts Servers have the following specifications:

• 1U servers: 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) high, 17.5 inches (447 mm) wide, and 24 inches (610 mm) deep.
• 2U servers: 3.5 inches (88.9 mm) high, 17.5 inches (447 mm) wide, and 30 inches (762 mm) deep

Pricing for Outposts Servers includes delivery, infrastructure service maintenance, and software patches and upgrades.

Our Deploying and operating in AWS video explores essential methods for deploying and operating in the AWS cloud, from provisioning resources to choosing the best deployment models and connectivity options. 

Common use cases

Outposts meet enterprise requirements that classic cloud models cannot reach. In manufacturing, low-latency controls are essential: running data collection and analytics on Outposts ensures machine learning models and automation work in real time, right on the factory floor. 

Hospitals and clinics leverage Outposts to process and store patient records locally, meeting HIPAA and regional compliance, yet harness the AWS cloud for disaster recovery and analytics when records can safely leave the facility.

Outposts in banking and financial services adhere to strict data residency mandates and provide the rapid response times required for trading platforms. 

Media organizations deploy Outposts at live events or remote editing suites, where local video transcoding and ingest drastically reduce lag and bandwidth costs before files move to cloud storage or distribution.

For instance, as a health professional, you may want to use AWS Outpost to store sensitive data and train machine learning models. The Complete Guide to Machine Learning on AWS with Amazon SageMaker will guide you through the complete workflow, from setting up your AWS environment and creating a SageMaker notebook instance to preparing data, training models, and deploying them as endpoints.

Hybrid application architecture

Outposts is built for hybrid applications. Developers can deploy workloads spanning both Outposts and AWS Regions using the same APIs, infrastructure-as-code templates, and monitoring tools. Identity controls (IAM), networking (VPC and subnets), logging (CloudWatch), and automation (Systems Manager) work across both environments, allowing seamless policy enforcement, automation, and visibility.

Operational Considerations

Integrating Outposts impacts daily operations from management to troubleshooting.

Management and monitoring

Customers manage Outposts resources through the AWS Management Console, CLI, and SDKs. This approach eliminates the learning curve that typically comes with on-premises gear. 

With AWS Systems Manager, teams automate patching, configuration, and inventory on Outposts and in the cloud, providing consistent automation and operational best practices regardless of workload location.

Security and compliance

AWS Outposts shares the same security and compliance approach as the larger AWS cloud, maintaining a strict shared responsibility model. AWS manages the physical security and hardware lifecycle. 

Customers maintain control of workload security, identity management, and data encryption. 

Outposts is eligible for major certifications, such as HIPAA, SOC, and GDPR, and supports the use of AWS Key Management Service for local and regional encryption needs.

Learn the most important AWS security best practices to protect your cloud environment from threats in our AWS Security Best Practices: Key Strategies for Cloud Safety tutorial. 

Maintenance and support

On the hardware side, AWS handles all maintenance and break-or-fix operations. AWS technicians manage replacements and upgrades on-site, providing enterprise-level support and hardware assurance. 

Customers are responsible for their application health and OS-level operations, but not for physical device support, which reduces the operational burden for internal staff.

Outposts Integration and Tooling

AWS Outposts is designed to work smoothly with the development processes and tools organizations use in AWS every day.

Development tools and CI/CD

Developers and DevOps teams can leverage AWS CloudFormation, CodeDeploy, and other pipeline tools to automate deployments and manage infrastructure on Outposts just like they would in a Region. 

Whether resources run locally or remotely, developers do not need to change their toolchains or processes for CI/CD.

Learn how CI/CD is employed in data engineering workflows and the tools that are used to build these processes from our CI/CD in Data Engineering: A Guide for Seamless Deployment tutorial. 

Service interoperability

Outposts integrates with AWS Region services for hybrid workflows. For instance, you might run applications on EC2 instances on Outposts and store large data sets in S3 in the cloud. 

With proper networking, data can flow between cloud and on-premises resources as needed. Deciding which parts of the workflow remain local and which leverage remote AWS capacity becomes part of hybrid architecture planning.

The AWS Storage Tutorial offers a complete guide to file storage on AWS with S3 & EFS. 

Challenges and Limitations of AWS Outposts

While AWS Outposts offers powerful benefits, organizations need to weigh certain constraints and requirements.

Physical requirements

Hosting Outposts racks comes with enterprise-class demands. Customers must provide sufficient power, cooling, and secure rack space. 

Only locations meeting AWS’s physical requirements and with appropriate network connectivity are eligible, and hardware ordering can involve lead times for manufacturing and delivery.

Limited service availability

Not every AWS service works directly on Outposts. For example, S3 is currently not a fully supported local service on Outposts. 

It has the following limitations:

• The maximum bucket size is 50 TB.
• A maximum of 100 buckets per Outpost is allowed.
• Data can only be accessed using access points and endpoints.

Some managed services or features that rely on deep integration with specific AWS regions will only operate in the cloud. Organizations may need to architect applications with these current limits in mind and monitor updates as AWS expands the service portfolio.

Cost considerations

Pricing includes both an upfront or committed hardware fee and ongoing usage fees for the managed infrastructure. Compared to pure public cloud on-demand models, Outposts resembles a capital-plus-operations expense and may compete with traditional hardware refresh cycles. 

Careful cost modeling is necessary. The value proposition often lies in reduced compliance risks, time to deployment, and developer productivity.

Best Practices and Recommendations

A thoughtful approach to Outposts begins with a careful workload and operational assessment.

Workload assessment

Outposts is best suited for workloads requiring ultra-low latency, guaranteed data residency, or regulatory controls. Organizations should profile workloads for performance, space, and network dependencies before planning a deployment.

Connectivity planning

Reliable connectivity to the AWS Region is essential for Outposts to function properly. Redundant network links and tested failover processes are strongly recommended. Organizations should plan for controlled degradation scenarios if the service link is lost, knowing which services can run in isolation and which require constant connectivity.

Security hardening

Security best practices for Outposts mirror cloud standards: use strong encryption, segment networks, enforce least-privilege roles, and integrate Outposts with existing on-premises security systems wherever possible. Regular reviews of user access and compliance posture are advised.

Conclusion

AWS Outposts bridges the gap between the agility of the cloud and the control of on-premises infrastructure. It empowers organizations to meet the strictest demands for latency, compliance, and operational consistency. For enterprises charting a path toward hybrid cloud, Outposts unlocks new options for modernization without compromise.

Amazon Web Services is a vast platform. Explore more AWS concepts through one of our in-depth AWS courses: 

• AWS Concepts
• AWS Cloud Technology and Services Concepts
• AWS Security and Cost Management Concepts
• Introduction to AWS Boto in Python
• Streaming Data with AWS Kinesis and Lambda