Announcing support for Amazon WorkSpaces Personal with AWS Global Accelerator

Customer often ask how they can improve the experience for users connecting to Amazon WorkSpaces. End users may be connecting from long distances or over unreliable networks. WorkSpaces Personal now integrates with AWS Global Accelerator (AGA) to enhance WorkSpaces connection performance by optimizing streaming traffic through the AWS Global Network and edge locations. This feature particularly benefits customers whose end users connect to WorkSpaces across long distances. For additional details on AGA see the admin guide.

The AGA feature is enabled at either the WorkSpaces directory level or for individual WorkSpaces running Amazon DCV protocol. When advantageous, the service automatically routes the streaming traffic through the nearest AWS edge location and across AWS’s congestion-free, redundant global network, delivering a more responsive and stable streaming experience. The WorkSpaces service fully manages AGA usage, subject to outbound data volume limits detailed in WorkSpaces documentation.

This enhancement is available at no additional cost for Personal WorkSpaces running DCV protocol.

Prerequisites

• WorkSpaces use a range of public IPv4 addresses for the dedicated endpoints. Configure your firewall policies for devices that access WorkSpaces through AGA. If the AGA endpoints are blocked by the firewall, WorkSpaces streaming traffic will not be routed through AGA. For the AGA endpoints IP ranges in each AWS region, visit DCV gateway servers.
• To access WorkSpaces through AGA, users must use WorkSpaces client that supports Amazon DCV and running version 5.23 or later.

Enable AGA for a WorkSpaces directory

1. Open the WorkSpaces console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Directories.
3. Under the Directory ID column, choose the directory ID of the directory you want to configure AGA settings for.
4. On the Directory Details page, scroll down to the AWS Global Accelerator (AGA) configuration section and choose Edit.
5. Choose Enable AGA (automatic).
6. Always use TCP with AGA is selected by default. If you de-select it, your WorkSpaces clients determines whether TCP or UDP is used with AGA based on the DCV streaming protocol settings on your clients.
7. Choose Save.

After you enable AGA for a WorkSpaces directory, DCV WorkSpaces in the directory will start to utilize AGA for streaming starting from the next sessions. No reboot is needed.

When WorkSpaces users choose the network options, they will see a display that they are using AGA.

Enabling AGA for specific WorkSpaces

Customers interested in testing with some WorkSpaces before enabling on all WorkSpaces can set the AGA value at an individual WorkSpace. In addition, if you are looking to compare two users coming from a similar location you can use Tags with WorkSpaces to build dynamic dashboards.

To enable AGA for a WorkSpace

1. Open the WorkSpaces console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose WorkSpaces and Personal.
3. Under the WorkSpace ID column, choose the WorkSpace ID of the WorkSpace you want to configure AGA settings for.
4. On the WorkSpaces Details page, scroll down to the AWS Global Accelerator (AGA) configuration section and choose Edit.
5. Choose Manually override AGA configurations for this WorkSpace.
6. Choose Enable AGA (automatic).
7. Always use TCP with AGA is selected by default. If you de-select it, your WorkSpaces clients will determine whether TCP or UDP is used with AGA based on the DCV streaming protocol settings on your clients.
8. Choose Save.
9. Optionally if you are looking to test and get some visualizations within CloudWatch to compare WorkSpaces, you can use Tags.
10. Choose Managed Tags.
11. Set the Key to AGAValue and the Value to Enabled for the WorkSpace that is enabled, and disabled for the WorkSpace that is not using AGA.
    
12. Choose Save changes.

Creating a CloudWatch dashboard

1. Open the CloudWatch Console, navigate to Metrics, Explorer.
2. Under Metrics, choose WorkSpaces Workspace: UserConnected, WorkSpaces Workspace: InSessionLatency, and WorkSpaces Workspace: UDPPacketLossRate.
   
   
3. Under From Choose AGAValue = “All values(*)
   
4. Choose Split by AGAValue.
   
5. Finally, choose Add to dashboard

Cleaning up

If you no longer need the resources that were created following this blog, follow the steps below.

To remove AGA for a WorkSpace

1. Open the WorkSpaces console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose WorkSpaces and Personal.
3. Under the WorkSpace ID column, choose the WorkSpace ID of the WorkSpace you want to configure AGA settings for.
4. Scroll down to the AWS Global Accelerator (AGA) configuration section and choose Edit.
5. Choose Manually override AGA configurations for this WorkSpace.
6. Choose Disable AGA.
7. Choose Save.

To remove AGA for a Directory

1. Open the WorkSpaces console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Directories.
3. Under the Directory ID column, choose the directory ID of the directory you want to configure AGA settings for.
4. On the Directory Details page, scroll down to the AWS Global Accelerator (AGA) configuration section and choose Edit.
5. Choose Disable AGA.
6. Choose Save.

To remove the CloudWatch dashboard

1. Open the CloudWatch Console, navigate to dashboards.
2. Choose the dashboard created earlier.
3. Choose Actions and then Delete dashboard.

Conclusion

In this post, we discussed how to set up Amazon WorkSpaces Personal with AGA.  For additional information on AGA checkout the product page. If you have any questions, please reach out to your AWS support team. For the latest on new features for End User Compute check out the Whats New with AWS and be sure check out our YouTube playlist.

	Haneesh Kotha is a Specialist Senior Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS), focusing on End-User Computing (EUC) solutions. With 14 years of experience in the EUC space, Haneesh has developed deep expertise in understanding customer requirements and tailoring AWS EUC solutions to meet their specific needs.
	Dave Jaskie brings 15 years of experience in the End User Computing space. Outside of Work, Dave enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife and 4 kids.
	Gekai Zou is Sr. Product Manager Technical in AWS End User Computing. Gekai has been with AWS since 2019. Outside of work, Gekai enjoys camping and skiing with his family.
	Phil Persson is a Principal GTM Solutions Architect for End User Computing where he leads the EUC Architecture team across APJ.. Phil has been with AWS since December 2012 where he was a founding member of AWS Premium Support in the Sydney Region and then a Technical Account Manager for AWS Enterprise Support.