'Net Features : cloud

1&1 Dynamic Cloud Server Enhances Scalability for SMBs

Michael Garrity — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:10:00 GMT

Web hosting company 1&1 Internet recently upgraded its 1&1 Dynamic Cloud Server that will make the solution more flexible and cost efficient.

The biggest change to the server is an increased focus on scalability that allows it to meet a customer’s performance requirements at any time. This is primarily through the inclusion of dynamically adjustable resources, including Processor Cores (vCore), RAM (GB) and Hard Disk Space (GB) that can be configured up or down by the users, themselves.

In addition, 1&1 Dynamic Cloud Server customers can add up to 99 virtual machines (as required) without migration under a single contract, as the new updates come with no fixed contract, at all; instead, costs are dependent upon the configuration in place, so users only pay for the resources they require and use. There are no basic fees, setup fees, minimum contract terms or transparency of per-hour costs.

All servers are available in both Linux and Windows configurations, which are installed automatically, and include full root access, 2000 GB of traffic, unlimited on-demand Snapshot Backups, Parallels Plesk 11 and a $60 starting credit; they also come with fail-safe security through redundant cores and storage.

These changes to the 1&1 Dynamic Cloud Server give small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to leverage high performance for just short periods of time, while only paying for the actual requirements they use.

CloudAccess Integrates Identity and Access Management

Michael Garrity — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:30:00 GMT

Cloud-based unified security solution provider CloudAccess has recently announced version 3.0 release of its CloudIDM/AM system, featuring seamless, “unique” integration between enterprise identity management and access controls (i.e. single sign-on and access management) from the cloud.

In addition, CloudIDM/AM 3.0 comes with multi-directional password synchronization between the system’s identity management solution, Active Directory and/or Lightweight Director Access Protocol (LDAP), as well as a federated gateway that allows access to an application or website, a dynamic self-service portal and centralized GUI-based workflow automation.

"We've taken the next evolutionary step to integrate the key capabilities of provisioning, multi-factor authentication and role-based workflow management with an advanced single sign on for SaaS and legacy applications and manage it all from the cloud," said Kevin Nikkhoo, CEO of CloudAccess.

Because of a proliferation of SaaS applications, increased complexity with “bring-your-own-deivce” and general user mobility, many organizations these days are suffering from more and more vulnerability gaps. As a result, regulatory agencies have made it a legal requirement to continuously monitor and report on user access. So, straight out of the box, the newly updated CloudIDM/AM system will include the streamlined ability to automate compulsory reporting in a way that satisfies the compliance governance for a variety of agencies, including HIPAA, PCI, FFIEC, NIST FERC and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Since it is a cloud-deployed SaaS solution, CloudIDM/AM 3.0 doesn’t require any hardware or software to install, and it will integrate with other scalable security solutions, like SIEM and log management systems. Plus, the whole suite can be monitored in real time from a single dashboard.

CloudIDM/AM 3.0 is currently available for direct sale, or through various reseller channels.

Rackspace Adds to Developer Toolset

Allison Howen — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Cloud hosting provider Rackspace has acquired Exceptional Cloud Services in a move to enhance its toolset for developers deploying and managing applications in the open cloud.

Through the deal, Rackspace will expand its developer solutions to include error tracking and Redis-as-a-Service capabilities. Currently, more than 50,000 application developers use these solutions from Exceptional Cloud Services.

“Rackspace is improving the key technologies used by developers in the open cloud. Our focus on the developer community is deeper than ever before and we are carefully adding strategic technologies to our open hybrid cloud portfolio, while keeping the needs of application developers in mind,” said Pat Matthews, senior vice president of corporate development at Rackspace. “Through the acquisition of Exceptional Cloud Services, we’re gaining technology and expertise that will provide startups and cloud developers with the tools that help them deliver more reliable customer experiences and to bring the next generation of cloud-based apps to market faster.”

The acquisition will provide Rackspace with the following products:

Exceptional.io - Exceptional tracks errors in more than 6,000 Web applications. The service not only reports errors in real-time, but also gathers the information developers need to fix errors.

Airbrake.io - Airbrake collects errors generated by other applications and aggregates the results for review.

Redis To Go - Redis To Go helps users manage Redis instances easier, whether it’s one instance or hundreds.

Moreover, the Exceptional Cloud Services acquisition will also assist Rackspace in its recent push into the MongoDB market. This is because the company plans to integrate the Redis To Go solution with the MongoDB database as a service from ObjectRocket. By aligning these two solutions, Rackspace aims to provide developers with a choice of open source-based data platforms that increase the speed and reduce the complexity of building powerful applications on the Rackspace Open Cloud.

"Rackspace has taken another step towards creating a one-stop shop for the growing community of developers that are looking to build complex applications on the open cloud," said Melanie Posey, Research Vice President at IDC. "With today's acquisition of Exceptional Cloud Services, Rackspace gave depth to its application developer toolkit by adding error tracking capabilities, along with a caching solution from Redis To Go, which the company plans to integrate with its recently acquired MongoDB database as a service from ObjectRocket. The tools and depth of expertise that Rackspace gained through its recent acquisitions will collectively work to reduce the complexity associated with building open cloud applications and speed time to market, while helping the company extend its reach to a broader range of global developers.”

Confused About the Cloud? You Are Not Alone

Administrator — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:00:00 GMT

By Will Stevens, Webfusion

If someone asked you "what is the cloud" how long would it take you to come up with a good answer? Thirty seconds? A couple of minutes? Or would you have to regretfully shrug your shoulders and admit you don't really understand what it is?

It's fair to assume that most people in the IT industry would fall into the first two categories – even if you're not raising bootstrap funding for an innovative cloud-based start-up, the chances are that if you work in the sector in any capacity, you'll have some knowledge of the cloud. But it seems the general public are lagging behind when it comes to understanding one of the hottest computing buzzwords around, as this infographic demonstrates.

(Infographic credit: The Webfusion VPS Server team)

So what should we take away from a survey that indicates a huge number of Americans use cloud services, but appear to do so without realizing?

It's tempting to dismiss the findings as being no big deal – after all the public doesn't want to go on a crash course in computing, they just want to be able to access their emails and listen to their music. This attitude might be understandable if the IT industry didn't keep pushing the concept of cloud services as if it was a phrase that was well understood, but surely marketing your products using a buzzword that people haven't grasped makes little sense.

After all, among those 60 percent who profess to be ignorant about the cloud will be a significant number of existing and potential small business owners – exactly the kind of person business-related cloud services should be targeted at. But the demands of a small business owner go beyond those of casual users of services such as Gmail and iTunes – if you're looking to turn a profit it's not enough to know that something works the way it should most of the time, you need to know you're getting the cheapest, most reliable solution around.

If you work in the IT industry, you'll be aware the cloud does indeed offer a cheap, reliable solution for any number of business needs. But why use a term that has to be translated before your target audience understands what you're trying to sell them?

What's the point in telling someone the service they want will be delivered through the cloud when all they really want to know is if the product will save them money? If the words you're using carry little meaning for your target audience then you have drifted into the realm of empty buzzwords – small business owners are as likely to feel as engaged by "the cloud" as the average employee is by the kind of management speak which still dominates many companies. So perhaps it's time the IT industry forgot about the cloud and focused on the benefits of individual products. After all, small business owners aren't interested in some overarching buzzwords – they just want a service that's right for them.

Cache Anything and Speed Up Load Times

Michael Garrity — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:05:00 GMT

One of the most common methods that webmasters use to speed up their sites is to cache content (such as HTML pages, JavaScript, images or CSS) to reduce bandwidth and server load and speed up delivery.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of content that can’t be cached, and when websites need to utilize that it can be problematic for performance and user experience. CloudFlare, a provider of cloud-based services to help secure and accelerate websites, is looking to alleviate this problem for its users by “caching the uncacheable” through a new Web optimization software called Railgun.

CloudFlare users are already at an advantage, because the service will not only cache content, but also deliver it to users from its various datacenters around the world. However, according to the company’s blog, “only about 66% of content is cacheable,” meaning the remaining 34 percent has to be recovered from the server of origin. That is why the company developed Railgun, which can cache dynamically generated and/or personalized Web pages using a scheme that reduces bandwidth and speeds up the loading process.

Railgun starts the acceleration process for non-cached pages by speeding up the downloading of the initial HTML, which must happen before the rest of a page can even begin downloading.

Primarily, though, Railgun is able to send Web pages across the ‘Net much more quickly because it will compress them to an astonishingly smaller version, which it’s able to do by looking at changes on a page “from download to download.” It will reduce the pages to just 0.65 percent of their original size to ensure that they travel faster from the origin server to the user’s screen, no matter where they are.

This new service is currently only available for CloudFlare Business and Enterprise customers as a part of their service packages.

Janitor Monkey Will Clean Up Your Old AWS Instances

Michael Garrity — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:12:00 GMT

If you’re like me, you probably sat down with your family over the holiday break to relax and watch something on Netflix, only to find that its service was uncharacteristically down. Well, it seems that the company has corrected this problem, and now wants to share what it learned with the rest of us.

Netflix officially released a new open source tools for killing old Amazon Web Services (AWS) instances this week known as Janitor Monkey. This solution, which is part of the company’s “Simian Army” of internal management tools, is meant for enterprise organizations that employ a public cloud through AWS, particularly when they are unknowingly spending unnecessary money because they have forgotten to shut off an old instance.

“It is pretty easy to lose track of the cloud resources that are no longer needed or used,” say Netflix’s Michael Fu and Corey Bennett in a recent blog post. “Perhaps you forgot to delete the cluster with the previous version of your application, or forgot to destroy the volume when you no longer needed the extra disk.”

Janitor Monkey works largely with Netflix’s open source Asgard tool, which lets administrators delete their unused resources; this process is streamlined thanks to Janitor Monkey, which does the work of automatically tracking down these useless instances and allowing Asgard to clean them up.

According to Netflix, Janitor Monkey had deleted over 5000 resources from the company’s production and test environments when it was being used as an in-house product.

In addition to AWS instances, Janitor Monkey also detects EBS volumes, EBS volume snapshots and auto-scaling groups, and all of them come with their own unique rules for how they are marked. (For example, EBS volumes are marked as “cleanup candidates” if they haven’t been attached an instance for 30 days.) Once Janitor Monkey inspects these resources and applies the appropriate rules to them, it will determine if they are, in fact, cleanup candidates and, if so, it marks them for clean up and schedules a time for Asgard to do it. These events will be logged in an Amazon SimpleDB table by default, and it should be small enough to fit inside Amazon’s free-pricing tier.

However, just to double check itself and make sure it isn’t acting too hastily, Janitor Monkey will then inform the administrations attached the specific resources with an alert sent two days before it is scheduled to be cleaned up. Out of the box, Janitor Monkey is automatically configured to run on non-holiday weekends at 11 a.m., but it can be modified to run at other customized times.

High Storage Instances Come to Amazon EC2

Michael Garrity — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 21:09:00 GMT

Amazon Web Services (AWS) wanted to give its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) users a present, and what better way to celebrate the holidays than with family – a new instance family, that is.

The cloud computing services provider from Amazon recently announced High Storage instances for EC2. This additional instance family is optimized for applications that required rapid access to large amounts of data, while also providing AWS customers with 35 EC2 Compute Units of computing capacity, 117 GiB of RAM and 48 TB of storage across 24 hard disk drives. Moreover, these instances are capable of delivering more than 2.4 GB of sequential I/O performance per second.

In other words, because High Storage instances provide such massive amounts of direct attached storage per instance, they are ideal for data-intensive applications like Hadoop workloads, log processing, data warehousing and parallel file systems for processing and analyzing large datasets in the AWS cloud.

High Storage instances follow eight other EC2 instance families, including Cluster Compute and High I/O instances, to help meet the evolving application requirements of Amazon EC2 customers. Like the others, High Storage instances were designed to enhance the performance and efficiency of even the most demanding applications. They also power the new petabyte-scale data warehousing service Amazon Redshift and can help Amazon Elastic MapReduce customers process larger quantities of data more resourcefully, who helps significantly lower costs.

AWS customers can immediately launch High Storage instances through the AWS Management Console, Amazon EC2 and Elastic MapReduce Command Line Interfaces, AWS SDKs and various other third-party libraries. However, at the moment this new instance family is only available in the US East Region; they will be made available in other AWS Regions “in the coming months.”

Mobile & Cloud, Top Trends for 2013

Michael Garrity — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 15:45:00 GMT

As the new year approaches, its time for small and medium-sized businesses to start getting connected to their customers in the cloud, as well as on mobile devices, according to a new trends report from cloud services solution provider j2 Global.

In compiling its report, the company found that mobility, cloud expansion and integrated business services will be “the three key trends that SMBs must be ready for in 2013.”

2011 saw a massive boon in smartphone sales – so much so that the mobile devices actually outsold PCs that year. That trend continued this year, and in 2013, j2 Global foresees companies getting more mobile-savvy, with mobile “tools” spanning industries, generations and job types and being leveraged for more than just basic communication needs.

j2 Global also points out that while many SMBs have long used smartphones and/or tablets for email and Web browsing, they must now start incorporating a wider array of other mobile business apps to increase their ability to stay connected and available and improve productivity. This can include workflow apps like mobile faxing or communication applications for VoIP calling, for example.

However, mobile isn’t the only major trend that SMBs need to adapt to as we rush into 2013. They’ll also have to start heading up into the cloud, as it provides various advantages for business owners, including faster deployment and a lower cost of ownership. And the good news for SMBs is that cloud-based technology provides a lowered cost of delivery and mobility, so they’ll save money in the long run.

The report predicts that cloud computing and As-a-Service technologies will soon become the default way that SMBs leverage technology, as they provide a lower barrier to entry, greater flexibility and virtual/remote capabilities and do away with the space and location restrictions that arise from on-premises solutions. Plus, these technologies will offers SMBs access to competitive, cost-effective and efficient advantages only available with the cloud. In fact, j2Gobal predicts that with the evolution of the cloud market, SMBs will adopt the tech more quickly, “putting at least 2 in 3 SMBs in the cloud in 2013.”

Finally, the company has discerned that integrated systems will become a much bigger part of SMB operations over the next year, as they provide greater efficiency through unified tools and systems that work collaboratively to drive results.

These fully integrated business solutions will begin to overtake disconnected systems throughout 2013. For example, email marketing will soon become one of the first applications to be completely integrated into CRM services, allowing sales and marketing teams to more easily execute campaigns and track the results from within a single application. Likewise, social capabilities will also become integrated into business platforms to help drive a faster sales cycle and lower acquisition costs; in addition, marketers will be able to manage social media campaigns more easily from their CRM services.

The new year is shaping up to be a banner year for SMBs, as long as they’re willing to adapt to and incorporate these emerging technologies into their operations. Mobile devices, integrated systems and the cloud are all going to play an increasingly bigger role in the way businesses operate over the next 12 months – is your company going to be ready?

Riak CS Lets Users Replicate Data Globally

Michael Garrity — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 14:46:00 GMT

Customers can now replicate Riak Cloud Storage (Riak CS) data across multiple data centers to assure its users that they can avoid disruptions from outages and serve content faster to multiple geographic locations, all while building upon its existing compatibility with Amazon S3.

The cloud storage service from Basho Technologies will now allow customers to spread their stored data over a series of data centers located around the world, and the integration of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure guarantees high availability. Basically, Riak CS customers will now be able to replicate their stored data on any data center they want on their own terms, in addition all of the benefits of using AWS, just to sweeten the deal. This solution also reduces some of the risks commonly associated with AWS.

Moreoever, these new replication capabilities will break large data objects into smaller blocks that will be streamed to the underlying Riak cluster, where they will then be replicated for high availability. A manifest for each object will be maintained, allowing the service to retrieve each block from the cluster and present the full object to the end-user. Global information, bucket information and manifests will all be streamed in real-time from a primary implementation to a secondary site for multi-site replication, and objects can be replicated in either “full” or “real-time” sync modes.

Riak CS, built upon Riak, the open source distributed NoSQL database, was just released by Basho last year, and the Amazon S3 integration, which provides Riak CS customers with access to S3 tools and frameworks, was only announced early in 2012.

Choose Your Own Cloud with SugarCRM

Michael Garrity — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:10:00 GMT

Things are getting kind of cloudy for SugarCRM, the customer relationship management solution, as it has recently partnered with VMware to bring its vFabric Application Director 5.0 to SugarCRM clients.

VMware is one of the largest cloud infrastructure companies in the world, and by integrating its software into SugarCRM, it will allow organizations of all sizes choose the time of cloud environment that will help them best achieve their business goals as the use the CRM platform.

vFabric Application Director 5.0 is an application provisioning solution that reduces app deployment times from week-long processes to just a few minutes. It also allows VMware users to deploy any application into any cloud during the app’s lifecycle, including heterogeneous clouds.

By collaborating with VMware, SugarCRM is now able to offer its clients the ability to run their CRM service on-demand, on-premises or up in the cloud, and the vFabric Application Director makes it much easier for them to support the quickly increasing number of public and private cloud environments. When customers can use their CRM systems in a variety of cloud environments, it gives businesses an advantage as their organizations evolve and require different systems to operate efficiently.

Roundup: Google Cloud Platform Adds Features, Lowers Prices

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:18:00 GMT

It has certainly been a busy few weeks for the Google Cloud Platform. Back on November 8th, Google updated its Cloud SQL offering to provide faster performance, larger databases, an EU zone (more on that shortly) and a no-cost trial – but now there’s more!

Let’s take a closer look at the numerous enhancements released this month and what it means to developers and businesses alike.

Perhaps the most noteworthy news is that Google is reducing the price of its standard Google Cloud Storage service (by over 20%). The new standard price for the first terabyte comes in at $0.095.

Google this week introduced a “limited preview” of its Durable Reduced Availability (DRA) storage. The offering lowers prices by reducing some data availability while maintaining the same latency performance and durability - a good option for batch computing.

Object versioning, which enables developers to maintain an update history to an object that can be used to protect against accidental overwrites or deletes, has been introduced.

Developers using Google App Engine, Google Cloud Storage, and Google Cloud SQL can now deploy their applications, data and virtual machines to European datacenters.

Another very noteworthy feature is the addition of 36 new Compute Engine instance types and a reduction in price for the four instances it originally announced earlier this year. In the coming weeks, Google will make high memory instances, high CPU instances and diskless configurations available.

The Hidden Costs of E-Commerce Platforms

Allison Howen — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:30:00 GMT

An online store can only be as successful as the e-commerce platform that is running it, which is why it is vital for merchants to map out their business’s needs, goals and budget before they make a commitment to a solution.

But despite this preparation, a new Demandware study reveals that 43 percent of all e-commerce platforms end up having a higher total cost of ownership (TCO) than predicted. In fact, the “Understanding TCO When Evaluating E-Commerce Solutions” study, which was conducted by Forrester Consulting, found that online retailers spend an average of 7 percent of their total online revenue to support their e-commerce platforms, however, 74 percent of merchants don’t believe that their current solutions will scale to support their planned growth.

Hidden Costs and Limitations

Merchants using homegrown or a licensed on-premise e-commerce platform may end up paying a higher TCO because they usually need to purchase additional licenses to grow their business. For example, 67 percent of retailers using a licensed on-premise solution report that they are contractually obligated to acquire additional licenses when reaching a certain threshold of online traffic, while 78 percent of online retailers report that their vendor contract restricts them from using the technology into new markets. This means that many e-commerce platforms are restricting online stores' growth initiatives, such as international and multichannel expansion.

Not only is the TCO for many e-commerce platforms higher than expected, but one of the study's most surprising metrics reveals that due to the complexities associated with upgrading an e-commerce platform, 39 percent of retailers only upgrade their platform to the latest version once every two to three years. This could be attributed to the long amount of time that it typically takes to complete an upgrade, but regardless, it means that these retailers risk falling behind their competitors by not staying up-to-date with basic functionality and usability features.

The Cloud is Gaining Trust

The complexities and lack of support of current e-commerce platforms has led 25 percent of retailers to plan on re-platformming within the next two years, and a further 29 percent will re-platform within four years. According to the report, these merchants will seek a platform that supports their business’s multichannel and global expansion goals, as well as one that caters to digitally connected consumers. Although 81 percent of online retailers currently use a homegrown or licensed on-premise e-commerce solution, some retailers are looking to the cloud for better performance despite the uncertainties that still surround cloud-based solutions.

“In the first generation of e-commerce, when CIOs had to build everything from scratch, retailers took on major new costs to develop and operate platforms, which over time became assumed – and sometimes forgotten – in the P&L (profits and loss),” said Jamus Driscoll, senior VP of marketing for Demandware. “We believe the study clearly shows that as retailers move forward into a new digital world, they also need to pause and challenge yesterday’s assumptions regarding the costs of ecommerce. It’s time to think differently.”

Cloud-based platforms can be beneficial because they tend to offer upgrades that are easy to implement and also don’t restrain growth possibilities. While 44 percent of the survey respondents state that they still perceive cloud-based solutions as lacking maturity, 41 percent are also now including cloud solutions in their selection process.

Regardless of a merchant's preference for cloud or homegrown solutions, they should remember that selecting an e-commerce platform is a long-term decision. This means that they need to take hidden costs, features and functionality into consideration when researching solutions. And most importantly, merchants should choose a platform that has the ability to grow with their online business.

Automate Email Processes from the Cloud

Michael Garrity — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:00:00 GMT

The UK’s Parker Software company is best known for its live visitor tracking/live chat solution WhosOn and Email2DB, an email parser and business process automation solution, but the company is looking to flesh out the latter solution with the release of Email2Cloud, its new cloud-based email automation service.

Naturally, Email2Cloud is based on the Email2DB software, and the solution will automate a customer’s crucial business process to run when they receive incoming emails, which can include Twitter responses, Web page changes and database changes.

Email2Cloud will work similarly. The solution reads email messages, database records, Twitter feeds, Web pages, Excel spreadsheets, RSS feeds and “other sorts of messages,” and then extracts any useful information to add to and update a customer’s database(s) and trigger automated actions.

Parker Software’s newest solution can integrate with many widely used CRM, ERP, CMS and POS systems, including SharePoint, Salesforce, Dynamics, PayPal and QuickBooks, using Email2Cloud will allow businesses to synchronize their emails and find specific information from within these emails, which enables real-time automation thanks to tighter integrations with the company’s processes and systems, thus making them more effective.

Email2Cloud is built upon the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to ensure a high availability and resiliency within a fully managed cloud-based solution. As an added bonus, the system is even able to scale without downtime, so it works equally well for both small and enterprise-level businesses.

Customers can easily set up and configure Email2Cloud through a simple drag-and-drop process, where regular expressions are used to match information from emails and simple validation through email or SMS to approve workflows.

Remote Support for Private Clouds from RackSpace

Michael Garrity — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:15:00 GMT

The open cloud company Rackspace ranks high among major players like Amazon and Windows in the cloud computing industry, which is an impressive feat. But the company isn’t about to rest on its laurels, as it just announced a slew of new features and enhanced support offerings for its Rackspace Private Cloud Software.

Rackspace just launched Private Cloud Software in August and already thousands of businesses and organizations from more than 125 different countries have downloaded it.

These new additions have been collectively named “Alamo” and incorporate “Folsom,” the latest release of the OpenStack Cloud Software platform that came out in September and included nearly 200 new features. This is the same platform that powers the Rackspace Cloud.

Alamo has allowed Rackspace to extend its service portfolio for the Rackspace Private Cloud, particularly with a new support level – Core Software Support – that includes remote access support for the Private Cloud Software stack all day long and every day of the year. Core Software Support will allow the cloud company’s engineers login to a customer’s private cloud environment to install, configure, patch and troubleshoot, as needed.

Some other new features are highly scalable Block Storage that turns external storage into an additional storage volume and Object Storage powered by OpenStack Swift that allows customers to create “massively scalable” storage resource pools for storing files, with server images taking advantage of commodity hardware to provide reduced costs. It also provides new Monitoring that includes Graphite and Collectd applications to extend monitoring and alerting capabilities. All of these new features were designed to work in private cloud environments.

Amazon Web Services Down Under

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 18:15:00 GMT

Amazon Web Services has announced the launch of a new Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region, the ninth in its global cloud computing platform.

“Over 10,000 customers in Australia and New Zealand are already using AWS, and this is before opening our new AWS Region in Australia today,” said Andy Jassy, Senior Vice President, Amazon Web Services. “With the ability to achieve single-digit millisecond latency to end users in Sydney, store data locally in Australia, and get to market more quickly and inexpensively by using AWS’s unmatched infrastructure technology platform, we expect the launch of AWS’s Sydney Region to further increase the amount of Australian and New Zealand customers leveraging AWS.”

At launch, the Sydney region consists of two seperate Availability Zones (datacenters in seperate distinct locations within a region which are designed to be operationally independent) and will support numerous AWS services including Elastic Compute Cloud, Map Reduce, DynamoDB, Simple DB and the Amazon Relational Database Service among others.

Among the more than 10,000 customers in Australia and New Zealand that are already using AWS, are the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (for running customer-facing Web apps), BrandScreen (which is using Elastic MapReduce to test machine learning algorithms and process data for its real-time ad trading platform), and Halfbrick Studioes - makers of FruitNinja - which is using DynamoDB and multiple Availability Zones to host millions of regular players.