South Africa is set to welcome Amazon’s first-ever AWS region data centre in the area. The online cloud computing section that belongs to the world-wide-web’s giant retailer, Amazon, is opening a data centre in South Africa. Amazon Web Services AWS will be opened in three Cape Town locations.
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Amazon would not want to be outdone by its rivals, Azure by Microsoft and Huawei who already have made their mark in the region. Amazon already has a huge online presence elsewhere around the world. In 2019, AWS brought in a hefty $10 Billion in profits for just one year-end quarter. Unlike America and other areas around the globe, Amazon does not offer online shopping in the South African region. It does, however, offer on-demand videos.
Amazon is build on four core principles that include focusing on the customer rather than the competitor, a passion for invention, a commitment to operational excellence, and long-term ideas. Amazon Web Services has been a leader in working to move and support cloud data for 14 years. The company offers more than 175 services for computing, storage, networking, robotics, Artificial Intelligence AI, and databases among other services.
The AWS Amazon Web Services will make it possible for those living and working in South Africa to now be able to run applications to better serve customers. Clients will be able to locally store their data while keeping control over their content. With a region, which includes at least two data centres in an area, applications will run faster and be more responsive with a local content backup. This will help developers, large companies, small companies, government, educational, and not-for-profit organizations throughout South Africa. Ultimately, it is the customer and end-user who wins.
Amazon has actually had a presence in South Africa for more than 15 years but had not yet brought AWS to the region. Now, South Africa will have three Availability Zones, each made up of at least one data centre. Each of the Availability Zones has power that is independent with high levels of security to ensure data is protected. Each zone is equipped with back-up power. They are connected through an ultra-low-latency network.
In 2004, Amazon was welcomed to Cape Town with its Development Center that put an emphasis on networking and software to support customer’s needs. This expanded in 2015 to help customers move data into the cloud. In 2018, Amazon brought AWS Direct Connect with CloudFront to Cape Town and Johannesburg.
With today’s announcement, Amazon will be a welcomed relief for the South African region. Being able to access data from “the cloud” is a game-changer in making businesses easier to run and lives easier with faster, more reliable data access. Today, AWS makes this possible in South Africa.