Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched the first Australian AWS Local Zones located in Perth to help AWS customers deliver distributed edge and hybrid cloud applications that require single-digit millisecond latency to end users
Amazon Web Services, Inc. revealed the introduction of the first AWS Local Zones site in Australia, located in Perth.
Among customers and AWS partners welcoming the launch was:
- Curtin University,
- HBF
- Mechanical Rock
- Nearmap
- Woodside Energy
Local Zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that brings AWS services within close proximity to major population centers, industry centers, and IT hubs allowing customers to take advantage of applications that require ultra-low latency when communicating with end users or with on-premises data centers.
Customers can run workloads with low latency requirements on AWS Local Zones while seamlessly connecting to the rest of their workloads running in AWS Regions.
AWS now has 29 AWS Local Zones around the world, with announced plans to launch 23 more AWS Local Zones globally, including a location in Brisbane.
The Hon. Stephen Dawson, Western Australian minister for Innovation and the Digital Economy says AWS’s investment to launch its first Australian AWS Local Zones location in Perth is a big win for Western Australian organisations and the economy.
“An AWS Local Zones location in Perth opens up more opportunities for Western Australian businesses to innovate and develop new services enabling better experiences for their customers and our citizens.”
“Having world-class cloud infrastructure here in Perth will drive our state’s innovation agenda and strengthen the diversification of our economy. and we’re pleased that AWS’s continued investment in our state supports the next generation of innovators.” said Dawson.
AWS takes care and provides assistance for AWS Local Zones, negating the need for customers to spend resources or put in effort to buy, use, and maintain infrastructure in different cities to cater to latency-sensitive applications.
These local zones also further aid businesses in moving additional workloads to AWS, facilitating a hybrid cloud migration plan and making IT management simpler.
The unveiling of the AWS Local Zones in Perth empowers customers to quickly roll out programs near the end users in the city.
With AWS Local Zones based in metropolitan areas, customers are able to achieve the low latency that is essential for applications such as video analytics, virtual workstations, gaming, live streaming, augmented and virtual reality, and remote healthcare.
They can also help customers operating in regulated sectors like healthcare, financial services, mining and resources, and public sector that might have preferences or requirements to keep data within a geographic boundary.
Sarah Bassett, head of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland Enterprise at AWS Australia said, “We are pleased to deepen our investments in Western Australia by bringing the first Australian AWS Local Zones location to Perth,”
“Speed matters in business, and we’ve designed AWS Local Zones to deliver low latency capabilities for organisations to improve the performance of their digital applications, process large amounts of data faster, and drive productivity gains.”
“The launch of AWS Local Zones location in Perth is a continuation of our investment to support organisations running all types of workloads by bringing secure, extensive, and reliable cloud infrastructure closer to our customers,” said Bassett.
Jason Cowie, chief information officer at Curtin University says flexibility is key in delivering the services and experiences that our staff and students require.
Curtin University is an Australian public research university, based in Perth, that supports more than 50,000 students.
“An AWS Local Zones location in Perth gives us more choice in where we host our workloads – whether to bring cloud closer to our students using AWS Local Zones or supporting large-scale IT migrations across our global campuses using the AWS Region in Sydney.” said Cowie
“Today’s announcement brings us one step closer to operating 100% on AWS, while enhancing our security and operational resiliency.” he said.
According to Sanjeev Gupta, chief information and transformation officer at HBF AWS enables the company to innovate at pace, process data faster, and enhance our service capabilities to benefit our large customer base in Western Australia and across Australia
HBF is Australia’s second-largest not-for-profit health insurer. It provides hospital and ancillary insurance to approximately 1.1 million members across Australia.
“The launch of the Perth AWS Local Zones location will help HBF to deliver future applications that require ultra-low latency,” said Gupta.
CEO and managing director at Nearmap, Dr. Rob Newman says AWS helps Nearmap provide its customers with real-time access to petabytes of Nearmap location data instantly via the web and APIs.
Nearmap, founded in Perth WA is a location intelligence company providing organisations with easy access to high-resolution aerial imagery, city-scale 3D content, artificial intelligence data sets, and geospatial tools.
“We have compute-heavy artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads that would be challenging to run without the scalability of AWS,“ said Newman.
Accoring to Newman the AWS Local Zones location in Perth provides more options to reduce latency and drive better user experiences for its customers in Western Australia.
Ben Wilkinson, chief digital officer at Woodside Energy says a AWS Local Zones location in Perth will give us the low latency capabilities we need for future Fuse use cases and help the company continue re-imagining how our business can be operated more efficiently through the use of automation and digital twins
Woodside Energy is a global energy company founded in Australia “Our digital twin solution, Fuse, allows us to create a virtual replica of our operations, pulling data from sensors, cameras, and robots to help us make more informed business decisions,” said Wilkinson.
AWS is planning to launch an additional 23 AWS Local Zones globally, including in Brisbane.
