Amazon to launch AWS data center infrastructure for India in 2016

                                           

     

Amazon has revealed that it’s expanding its public data center infrastructure to India to satisfy a growing demand for its cloud-based service in the region.

Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers cloud computing services for companies of all sizes, negating the need for these firms to have their own on-site servers. There are currently 11 AWS “regions” globally — the U.S. West (California and Oregon), U.S. East (Virginia), Brazil, Europe (Germany and Ireland), East Asia (Tokyo and Beijing), Southeast Asia (Singapore), and Australia (Sydney). There is an additional AWS “GovCloud” in North West U.S., designed specifically for government agencies

AWS is the pioneer in cloud infrastructure services and is the world's largest in the space, with revenue expected to be $6.2 billion in 2015, out of Amazon's overall revenue of over $90 billion (most revenues now come from the e-commerce business, but AWS is growing at 40-50% annually). Research firm Synergy estimates that AWS's revenue from cloud infrastructure services in the first quarter of this year was larger than the combined revenue of its four main competitors - IBM, Microsoft, Google and Salesforce. 

AWS's announcement comes within months of Microsoft announcing that it would commercialize three data centres in India by the end of this year. From the beginning of July, customers will be able to do private previews of infrastructure services, which it calls Azure. By next year, it will also offer the cloud version of its productivity suite, called Office 365, and cloud CRM (customer relationship management). IBM established a data centre in Mumbai offering cloud services late last year and a second is expected to be ready later this year.

This big rush to establish data centres in India is partly a reflection of the dramatic shift to cloud computing, the Digital India initiatives of the government, and the need, especially of banking & financial services and government departments, to keep data within the geographic boundaries of India. In Amazon's case, Indian users mostly use its Singapore data centre now. An India centre will also reduce latency - the time it takes to fetch data.

AWS's customers in India include enterprises like Tata Motors, Future Group, Macmillan India, Manipal Global Education, and small enterprises and startups like Paytm, Freshdesk, InMobi , HackerEarth, Capillary Technologies, redBus, Hike and Ferns N Petals.