AWS Snowcone now supports multicast streams and routing by providing instances with direct access to external networks

AWS Snowcone now supports multicast streams, routing, load balancing, and other networking use cases by enabling instances on a Snow device to have direct access to an external network. By providing instances with layer 2 network access without any intermediary translation or filtering, customers gain increased flexibility over the network configuration of their Snow device along with improved network performance, enabling use cases that were previously not possible.

Prior to this launch, the only network configuration available required that an internal IP address be translated via a Network Address Translation (NAT) to an external elastic IP, which could connect to one of the physical network interfaces on the device. This prevented network configurations that do not function with a NAT, or require multiple physical network interfaces. Now, customers can attach an instance directly to any of the Snow device’s physical network interfaces and have greater flexibility over the network configuration.

To use this feature, customers can create a direct network interface, associate it with one of the Snow device’s physical network interfaces, and then attach it to one of their instances running on the Snow device. Each direct network interface can be assigned a VLAN tag and customers can also optionally customize the MAC address. Multiple direct network interfaces can be associated with a single physical network interface and with a single instance.

This feature is available for AWS Snowcones ordered on or after January 12, 2021. This feature is available in all AWS Regions where AWS Snowcone is available and at no additional cost. To learn more, visit the AWS Snowcone documentation and the AWS Snowcone product page. Log into the AWS Snow Family console to get started.