You’re trying to launch worldwide, and your arch doc looks clean. Then reality hits. Service X isn’t in Region Y. Feature Z has no API yet. CloudFormation support? Maybe next quarter. That’s how a “two‑week rollout” turns into months of rework.
Here’s the fix. AWS launched AWS Capabilities by Region. It’s a planning tool that shows which services, features, APIs, and CloudFormation resources exist in each AWS Region—plus a forward‑looking roadmap. It’s built for teams shipping multi‑region apps without gambling on parity.
With AWS now in 38 regions and 120+ Availability Zones, you can’t wing it. Use one place to compare regions side‑by‑side, decide faster, and dodge compliance surprises before they bite. You get instant clarity, fewer delays, and a cleaner path to global scale.
If you’ve shipped a build and heard “coming soon,” this tool saves you. Think of it like a parity radar. Scan regions, spot gaps, and plan with facts. Bring it to architecture reviews, sprint rituals, and DR planning. You’ll launch global with less drama and way more confidence.
You deploy to a new market, then your must‑have feature isn’t there. Maybe S3 Object Lock. Maybe a specific KMS key spec. Or it exists, but the API you need isn’t exposed yet. Or CloudFormation support lags behind. Each mismatch adds friction. Last‑minute architecture changes, manual steps, or a delay that drains momentum.
And when you find out late, the blast radius grows fast. Security re‑reviews. Product shifts dates. Operations writes runbook hacks everyone calls “temporary.” Somehow they live forever. All because one region didn’t match your primary.
Those “hidden” costs show up as extra toil too. More manual checks, more environment drift, and more template variance by region. Terraform and CloudFormation both drift. Multiply that by every market you enter, and the drag compounds.
First‑hand example: You’re rolling out a data residency‑compliant storage tier in Asia Pacific. You need S3 Object Lock, replication controls, and CloudFormation coverage for auditability. With AWS Capabilities by Region, you compare N. Virginia, Seoul, and Taipei side‑by‑side in seconds. You verify which features and templates exist and align the design. No guesswork. No “we’ll fix it later.”
Add one more win. When your PM asks, “Can we ship to Taipei this quarter?” you answer with a clean capability snapshot. No two‑day research rabbit hole.
Bonus upside: You turn tribal knowledge into shared knowledge. Not just one senior dev holding the mental map. The whole team sees the same data and makes the same call. That cuts bottlenecks and speeds reviews.
Open AWS Capabilities by Region in the AWS Builder Center. Pick regions, like N. Virginia, Seoul, and Taipei. Select a service like S3, RDS, or Lambda. You’ll see which features, APIs, and CloudFormation resources each region supports. It’s an interactive pane for quick comparisons and fast decisions.
A few practical flows teams like:
Pro tip: Bring your non‑negotiables list. Think encryption at rest with KMS. Object immutability. VPC endpoints for X. Eventing support. Database engine and version. Use those as filters, so you compare on what actually blocks a launch.
Instead of stitching docs, you get a clean, parallel view of regions. That’s gold when you’re:
Parallel views help kill unknown unknowns. It’s one thing to know a service exists. It’s another to know the toggle or API you depend on is live. With side‑by‑side columns, gaps jump out fast.
First‑hand example: Your team needs a specific RDS engine version and cross‑region read replicas. The tool shows which regions support that engine and version combo. It also shows if the APIs and CloudFormation hooks exist. If a region lags, you’ll know early and can pick a better pair.
Also check downstream tooling. If your observability stack needs certain log delivery or event routing features, confirm those too. Choosing a pair that supports your telemetry pattern means fewer “oh no” moments later.
The forward‑looking roadmap shows planned feature rollouts by region. You can time your launch with upcoming parity. Or build a temporary workaround knowing when it retires. Translation: fewer rebuilds, cleaner migrations.
Use the roadmap in three ways:
For broader context, see AWS Global Infrastructure and Services by Region pages. Get the big‑picture view:
If you’re in finance, health, or public sector, you can’t hope. You must prove controls exist. Before hosting in the EU, Singapore, or Australia, verify encryption, logging, audit, and key management for that region. Pair this with CloudFormation coverage to automate evidence and change control. For S3 Object Lock specifics, see: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/object-lock.html
First‑hand example: A fintech expanding to the EU confirms CloudTrail, KMS key types, S3 compliance features, and logging endpoints. They align controls to policy and avoid re‑architecting three sprints later.
Add one more layer: governance. Show auditors that each control maps to a regional capability and an IaC resource. Your review goes from “explain this” to “show me the template.” That shortens audits and cuts findings.
DR isn’t just “pick a region near users.” It’s “does our secondary mirror what matters?” If primary uses a certain database engine, cache tier, or eventing feature, secondary needs matching APIs and IaC. The tool reveals gaps early so you can adjust regions or plan fallbacks.
First‑hand example: A SaaS provider checks cross‑region replication across RDS and S3. Primary in N. Virginia and DR in Ohio. They confirm CloudFormation parity so runbooks won’t break during failover drills.
Practical DR checklist to run inside the tool:
Low latency fuels growth. With the comparison view, you pick where to place shards. Where to cache with CloudFront. Where to route via Route 53, or accelerate with Global Accelerator. Performance gains stack when your regions already support needed features.
Helpful references:
A simple pattern: pick two or three candidate regions for a shard. Confirm compute, data, and caching must‑haves. Then check the roadmap for near‑term arrivals. If a region needs a soon‑to‑ship cache or gateway feature, that might flip your choice.
The roadmap view is your early‑warning system. If a must‑have lands in Region X next month, ship a phased design today. Do a clean upgrade later. If a region lags with no ETA, avoid it for tier‑1 workloads. You move from reactive to proactive.
This mindset helps staffing too. Instead of throwing people at bespoke regional fixes, focus on a stable core. Plan measured upgrades when parity arrives. Fewer heroics. More predictable shipping.
First‑hand example: You’re targeting Asia Pacific (Taipei) for growth. The roadmap shows when a specific analytics feature and its CloudFormation resource will land. You build a minimal bridge for 60 days. Then flip to the native feature on release—no core refactor.
Make it operational. Track temporary workarounds with clear exit criteria and dates. When the roadmap lands, your change request and infra update are ready. Flip the switch, remove the workaround, and move on.
When leadership asks, “Can we launch there this quarter?” you’ll have a real yes or no. It’s based on capability coverage, not vibes. That’s how you compress planning and protect ship dates.
Turn this into a ritual. Before every region decision, run a 15‑minute parity check. Screenshot the comparison, attach it to the design doc, and keep moving. That tiny habit saves weeks later.
If you can’t check all five, don’t panic. Start with the next launch or the next DR drill. Bake capability checks into your standard checklist and let the wins stack.
It’s an interactive planning tool in the AWS Builder Center. It lets you check and compare which services, features, APIs, and CloudFormation resources exist in each AWS Region. It also shows planned roadmap items so you can time launches.
Services by Region gives high‑level availability by service. AWS Capabilities by Region goes deeper. It covers feature‑level details, API coverage, and CloudFormation support. It also lets you compare regions side‑by‑side and view planned rollouts. It’s for architecture planning, not just a directory.
Cloud architects, platform teams, DevOps and SREs, compliance leads, and product managers. If you make deploy‑ready decisions across regions, this tool saves time, cuts risk, and prevents rework.
Go to the AWS Builder Center. Open AWS Capabilities. Pick regions and search your services or features. Filter to what you care about, like storage controls or database versions. Use the roadmap to align timelines and avoid rebuilds.
Yes. By confirming required controls and CloudFormation resources exist in your target region, you strengthen evidence. Pair it with your governance and IaC pipelines for full traceability. Fewer findings, cleaner reviews.
No. It complements them. You still design for resilience, security, cost, and performance. The tool removes uncertainty about regional coverage so your best practices are actually doable there.
Treat them like any other decision. Verify capabilities for those regions. Confirm CloudFormation coverage for needed resources. Review docs for unique requirements or scope differences. Don’t assume parity—check it.
Use the tool to pick region pairs and required features. Then codify those choices in templates and pipelines. If a feature isn’t supported, guardrail it in code with flags or conditionals. Revisit when the roadmap lands.
Yes. By picking regions that support your critical APIs and IaC, you avoid missing feature blockers during failover. It won’t write runbooks, but it ensures the blocks exist where you need them.
Make it part of monthly release or quarterly planning. If you’re in an active expansion, check before every region decision. It’s a quick scan that prevents slow, costly rewrites.
1) Open AWS Builder Center and select AWS Capabilities by Region. 2) Add two to three candidate regions for your workload. 3) Search your critical services, like S3, RDS, or Lambda. 4) Verify required features, API availability, and CloudFormation support. 5) Check the roadmap; adjust timeline or region picks if needed. 6) Document decisions and update IaC templates accordingly.
You just turned a risky assumption into a concrete plan.
Pro tips to lock it in:
The bottom line: global planning fails when you assume parity and hope. AWS Capabilities by Region replaces guesswork with facts and gives you a roadmap to time moves. Use it to pick smarter region pairs, lock in compliance on day one, and ship multi‑region builds without holding your breath. Teams who win globally don’t just scale infra; they scale certainty.
“The fastest way to fix technical debt is to avoid creating it. Planning with real regional data is how you do that.”