Introducing AWS RTB Fabric for Real-Time Advertising Technologies | Amazon Web Services

Introducing AWS RTB Fabric for Real-Time Advertising Technologies | Amazon Web Services

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Today we’re introducing AWS RTB Fabric, a fully managed service built for real-time bidding (RTB) advertising workloads. This service helps advertising technology (AdTech) companies seamlessly connect with their vendors and demand partners such as Amazon Ads, GumGum, Kargo, MobileFuse, Sovrn, TripleLift, Viant, Yieldmo and others to run high-volume, latency-sensitive RTB workloads on Amazon Web Services (AWS) with consistent single digit network performance 0% lower network costs compared to up to 0% lower network costs.

AWS RTB Fabric provides a dedicated, high-performance network environment for RTB workloads and partner integration without the need for shared on-premises infrastructure or upfront commitments. The following diagram shows the high-level architecture of the RTB Fabric.

AWS RTB Fabric also includes pods, a capability that helps customers securely bring their own and partner applications into the compute environment used for real-time bidding. Modules support containerized applications and underlying models (FMs) that can increase transaction efficiency and bidding efficiency. At launch, AWS RTB Fabric includes modules to optimize traffic management, improve bid efficiency, and increase bid responsiveness, all running inline within the service for consistent, low-latency execution.

The growth of programmatic advertising has created a need for low-latency and cost-effective infrastructure to support RTB workloads. AdTech companies process millions of bid requests per second across publishers, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-side platforms (DSPs). These workloads are highly latency sensitive, as most RTB auctions must be completed within 200-300 milliseconds and require reliable, high-speed exchange of OpenRTB requests and responses between multiple peers. Many companies have solved this by deploying infrastructure in colocation data centers near key partners, which reduces latency but increases operational complexity, long provisioning cycles and high costs. Others have turned to cloud infrastructure to gain elasticity and scale, but often face complex provisioning, partner-specific connectivity, and long-term commitments to cost efficiency. These gaps increase operational overhead and limit agility. AWS RTB Fabric addresses these challenges by providing a managed private network built for RTB workloads that delivers consistent performance, simplifies partner onboarding, and achieves predictable cost-effectiveness without the burden of maintaining colocation or custom network setups.

Key skills
AWS RTB Fabric provides a managed foundation for running RTB workloads at scale. The service provides the following key features:

  • Simplified connection to AdTech partners – When you register an RTB Fabric gateway, the service automatically generates secure endpoints that can be shared with selected partners. Using the AWS RTB Fabric API, you can create optimized private connections to securely exchange RTB traffic across different environments. External links are also available to connect with non-RTB Fabric partners, such as those operating on-premises or in third-party cloud environments. This approach reduces integration time and simplifies collaboration between AdTech participants.
  • Dedicated network for low latency ad transactions – AWS RTB Fabric provides a managed, high-performance network layer optimized for OpenRTB communication. It connects AdTech participants such as SSPs, DSPs and publishers through private, high-speed connections that deliver consistent single-digit millisecond latency. The service automatically optimizes routing paths to maintain predictable performance and reduce network costs without requiring manual peering or configuration.
  • Pricing model in line with RTB economics – AWS RTB Fabric uses a transactional pricing model designed to align with the economics of programmatic advertising. Customers are billed for billions of transactions, providing predictable infrastructure costs that align with how ad exchanges, SSPs and DSPs operate.
  • Built-in traffic management modules – AWS RTB Fabric includes configurable modules that help AdTech workloads run efficiently and reliably. Modules like Rate Limiter, OpenRTB Filter, and Error Masking help you manage request volume, validate message formats, and control response processing directly on the network path. These modules run inline in the AWS RTB Fabric environment and maintain network speed without adding latency at the application level. All configurations are managed through the AWS RTB Fabric API, so you can define and update rules programmatically as your workloads scale.

We’re getting started
You can start building with AWS RTB Fabric today using the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools like AWS CloudFormation and Terraform.

The console provides a visual entry point for viewing and managing RTB gateways and links, as shown in the Dashboard the AWS RTB Fabric console.

You can also use the AWS CLI to configure gateways, create links, and programmatically manage traffic. When I started building with AWS RTB Fabric, I used the AWS CLI to configure everything from creating a gateway to setting up links and monitoring traffic. The setup was inside my Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) endpoint, while AWS managed the low-latency infrastructure that connected the workloads.

To begin with, I created a applicant gateway sending requests for quotation aa responder gateway receive and process responses to offers. These gateways act as secure communication points within the AWS RTB Fabric.

# Create a requester gateway with required parameters
aws rtbfabric create-requester-gateway \
  --description "My RTB requester gateway" \
  --vpc-id vpc-12345678 \
  --subnet-ids subnet-abc12345 subnet-def67890 \
  --security-group-ids sg-12345678 \
  --client-token "unique-client-token-123"

# Create a responder gateway with required parameters
aws rtbfabric create-responder-gateway \
  --description "My RTB responder gateway" \
  --vpc-id vpc-01f345ad6524a6d7 \
  --subnet-ids subnet-abc12345 subnet-def67890 \
  --security-group-ids sg-12345678 \
  --dns-name responder.example.com \
  --port 443 \
  --protocol HTTPS

After both gateways were active, I created a requestor-to-responder link to create a private, low-latency communication path for OpenRTB traffic. The line handled routing and load balancing automatically.

# Requester account creating a link from requester gateway to a responder gateway
aws rtbfabric create-link \
  --gateway-id rtb-gw-requester123 \
  --peer-gateway-id rtb-gw-responder456 \
  --log-settings '{"applicationLogs:{"sampling":"errorLog":10.0,"filterLog":10.0}}'
# Responder account accepting a link from requester gateway to responder gateway
aws rtbfabric accept-link \
  --gateway-id rtb-gw-responder456 \
  --link-id link-reqtoresplink789 \
  --log-settings '{"applicationLogs:{"sampling":"errorLog":10.0,"filterLog":10.0}}'

I also connected with external partners using External linkswhich extended my RTB workloads to on-premises or third-party environments while maintaining the same latency and security characteristics.

# Create an inbound external link endpoint for an external partner to send bid requests to
aws rtbfabric create-inbound-external-link \
  --gateway-id rtb-gw-responder456
# Create an outbound external link for sending bid requests to an external partner
aws rtbfabric create-outbound-external-link \
  --gateway-id rtb-gw-requester123 \
  --public-endpoint "https://my-external-partner-responder.com"

For efficient traffic management, I added modules directly to the data path. The Rate Limiter module controlled the volume of requests and the OpenRTB Filter verified message formats inline at network speeds.

# Attach a rate limiting module
aws rtbfabric update-link-module-flow \
  --gateway-id rtb-gw-responder456 \
  --link-id link-toresponder789 \
  --modules '{"name":"RateLimiter":"moduleParameters":{"rateLimiter":{"tps":10000}}}'

Finally, I used Amazon CloudWatch to monitor the throughput, latency and performance of the modules and exported the logs to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for auditing and optimization.

All configurations can also be automated using AWS CloudFormation or Terraform, enabling consistent and repeatable deployment across multiple environments. With RTB Fabric, I could focus on optimizing the bidding logic while AWS maintained predictable, single-digit millisecond performance for my AdTech partners.

See the AWS RTB Fabric User Guide for more details.

Now available
AWS RTB Fabric is available today in the following AWS regions: US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), and Europe (Ireland).

AWS RTB Fabric is constantly evolving to respond to the changing needs of the AdTech industry. The service expands its capabilities to support secure integration of advanced applications and AI-driven optimizations in real-time bidding workflows that help customers simplify operations and improve performance on AWS. To learn more about AWS RTB Fabric, visit the AWS RTB Fabric page.

– Betty

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