Choosing an AWS Region: Latency, Residency, Price and Services
Which region is closest, and what the candidates are
For a team with users in Dhaka, the candidates in TiCON's working set are Mumbai and Singapore. The working set for this market is:
| Cloud | Regions in the working set |
|---|---|
| AWS | ap-south-1 (Mumbai), ap-southeast-1 (Singapore) |
| Azure | Central India (Pune), South India (Chennai), West India (Mumbai), Southeast Asia (Singapore) |
| Google Cloud | asia-south1 (Mumbai), asia-south2 (Delhi), asia-southeast1 (Singapore) |
Take a read-heavy web application with users in Dhaka. A sensible design puts the primary in Mumbai or Singapore, with a CDN in front for static assets. Measure both candidates from a Dhaka network before you choose, because the carrier path matters more than the map. We do not publish a latency figure for either region.
If the same application also serves users in Europe, the region decision changes the transfer analysis, not only the speed. If a customer contract requires data to stay in one country, no hyperscaler region in Bangladesh can meet that requirement. That conversation belongs with counsel and the customer.
When latency matters, and when it does not
- Real-time and interactive workloads, and designs with many small calls between services: measure round-trip time from the users' networks and keep the sensitive path close to them.
- Web apps and APIs: a nearby region with a content delivery network in front is usually enough.
- Batch jobs, analytics and archival storage: region latency rarely decides the outcome.
Measure with requests your application really makes, from the networks your users use, at more than one time of day. Distance on a map is not a measurement.
How TiCON helps you decide
Residency. Data-protection rules apply as applicable in your jurisdiction, and they shape where personal data may be stored and how transfers out are documented. Your legal team decides which regime applies to each data set. A region is one input to that decision, not a compliance certificate. Data residency covers the question in more depth.
Price. The same service can cost different amounts in different regions. Compare the same workload in USD in each candidate region, and include traffic between regions. A system split across regions often surprises people on the bill.
Service availability. Not every service, instance type or feature is offered in every region, and new ones often launch in some regions first. Check the service list for each candidate before you design around it.
| Question | Evidence to collect | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Is response time within target from the users' networks? | Measurements taken from those networks | Engineering |
| Which data sets are personal or contractually restricted? | Data inventory | Legal and compliance |
| What does the workload cost in each region, in USD? | Same-workload comparison, including transfer | Finance |
| Does every required service exist in the region? | Service list per region | Architecture |
TiCON measures the candidate regions from your users' networks, documents the residency decision with you, and costs each option in USD. This page gives no latency figures and no residency guarantee, and it makes no statement about any region's legal status. Region lists change, so check the provider's current list before you commit.
Related reading
[How to Reduce Your AWS Bill: 6 Tactics That Work](/resources/blog/how-to-reduce-your-aws-bill) Tagging, rightsizing, commitments, idle cleanup, storage tiers and data transfer, with what each one needs from your team.
[Is AWS Available in Your Country?](/resources/blog/is-aws-available) Regions, service availability, data rules and payment routes, checked one at a time.
[Opening and Paying for an AWS Account Properly](/resources/blog/open-pay-aws-account) Account setup and payment routes, compared, so the contracting entity is clear before the first invoice.
This page is not legal advice. Confirm applicable requirements with your counsel and compliance team.