Amazon's cloud service Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced this morning that it is setting up a cloud infrastructure in Israel based on local data centers. AWS is following in the footsteps of Microsoft, which set up its Azure cloud computing services in Israel in June. AWS currently has cloud infrastructures in 22 countries, and has now announced setting up data centers in nine more countries including Israel, Italy and South Africa.
The infrastructure in Israel will enable AWS to operate its CloudFront fast content delivery network. At present, AWS's Israeli customers must use data centers based in Europe. This fact has a major significance because the data maintained and operated in a cloud server is subject to the regulations in which a data center is located. Consequently, it will be more of a 'safe haven' for sensitive data if the servers are in Israel, especially for organizations in the defense and public sectors. In the current situation, a European court could potentially obligate a company to reveal the data in its servers.
Having data centers located in Israel will also make the service faster. AWS estimates that performance could be accelerated by up to 75%.
AWS is the world's leading cloud service. While no official figures are available, market experts believe that Amazon leads by a small gap over Microsoft, which is the leading provider to the public sector.
In its announcement, AWS said that Israeli customers who run aplications on its CloudFront service include ironSource, JFrog, Kaltura, Kenshoo, Viber and Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL).
AWS general manager Israel Harel Ifhar said, "Amazon CloudFront's new local presence puts Israel on the map of AWS's global infrastructure. We will continue to invest in order to meet the expanding needs of our customers and assist in their journey of adopting and using cloud services. We will also continue to enlarge AWS's Israel team with additional technological and business jobs in order to serve our customers."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 14, 2019
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