The cloud computing wing of Amazon.com, Amazon Web Services, say it might set up data centers in South Africa.
This week, Amazon will be switching on its ‘AWS Direct Connect’ service in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Experts says this move is a prelude to possibly Amazon setting up its data center infrastructure in South Africa.
With the Direct Connect services, South African-based businesses will establish a dedicated network connection to AWS. It will be the first time local companies will achieve that.
Peter Desantis, the Amazon VP and Global Head of infrastructure said, “Having AWS Direct Connect in the country allows customers based in South Africa to have dedicated, reliable, and high-bandwidth connectivity to the Amazon Global Network bypassing the public internet.”
Desantis went further to state that it is only a matter of time before Amazon sets up its own data center infrastructure.
“Across South Africa, we need to do quite a lot of work to get that infrastructure in place. But we’re excited because we think there’s a lot of business and growth in South Africa and it’s a matter of how quickly we can figure it out.”
Amazon Web Services left many attendees to the last month’s AfricaCom event disappointed. Prior to the event, there were rumors that Amazon will announce its plans to set up the cloud computing infrastructure.
It might be important to point out that Microsoft, a big rival to Amazon cloud business, has announced it will set up its Azure data centers in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
“We are announcing for the first time that THE Microsoft Cloud will be delivered directly from Africa with data centers in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with initial availability to our cloud technologies 2018,’ explained Julia White, the corporate VP for Azure and Security at Microsoft.
Microsoft did not however, disclose the exact areas where they are going to build the data centers nor the budget for the project.
