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AWS Expands Cloud Footprint in Asia
Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) this week launched a new datacenter region in Seoul, South Korea, further solidifying its foothold in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) area.
"Many thousands of Korean customers have been using the AWS Cloud from other AWS Regions for several years. Now, with the launch of the Seoul Region, Korean-based developers and companies, as well as multinational companies with end users in Korea, can securely store and process their data in AWS in Korea with single-digit millisecond latency across most of Korea," the company said in its announcement Wednesday.
The new Seoul region currently has two "Availability Zones." In AWS parlance, an availability zone is a hub that contains at least one geographically distinct datacenter.
The launch of the Seoul region brings the current number of AWS availability zones to 32, spanning 12 regions globally. It also marks the fifth AWS region in the APAC, alongside regions in Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing and Sydney (see map).
[Click on image for larger view.] Map of AWS regions and availability zones. (Source: AWS Global Infrastructure page.)
"Our Korean customers and partners have asked us to build AWS infrastructure in Korea so that they can run more of their workloads on AWS and approve new initiatives that could change their business and customer experience; we're excited about delivering this to our customers today," said AWS Senior Vice President Andy Jassy in a prepared statement.
The launch of the Seoul region builds on AWS' other investments in Korea, which include "[t]eams of Account Managers, Solutions Architects, Technical Support Engineers, Professional Services Consultants, and various other functions support customers," the company said. In addition, the AWS Partner Network has a number of ISVs and systems integrators (SIs) based in Korea.
AWS' continuing build-out of its cloud infrastructure comes as the competition with Microsoft's Azure public cloud reaches fever pitch. Microsoft has spent considerable dough -- a reported $15 billion to date -- on building out Azure's infrastructure, which currently stands at 20 regions serving 140 countries. The Redmond, Wash.-based company has touted its geographic scope as a selling point over AWS and the Google Cloud Platform.
For its part, AWS plans to continue its expansion to other markets throughout 2016. The company intends to launch regions in China, India, Ohio and the United Kingdom this year, adding nine more availability zones to its roster.