AWS launches Israel cloud region, to invest $7.2b

AWS server farm at Tnuvot  credit: TG Productions
AWS server farm at Tnuvot credit: TG Productions

Amazon Web Services has built three data centers in Israel, after winning the government Nimbus tender with Google Cloud.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) today launched its Israel cloud infrastructure region. The company has built three data centers in Israel. Until now cloud infrastructure services in Israel have been provided from data centers abroad. The launch today comes two years after AWS won the Israeli government's prestigious cloud infrastructure Nimbus tender together with Google Cloud. The two companies were chosen to provide infrastructure for the digitalization process of government ministries and various authorities as well as the IDF. The process includes moving data from local computers to the cloud.

AWS said that it plans investing an estimated $7.2 billion in Israel by 2037. AWS stressed that from today it has allowed not only government agencies and authorities but also developers, startups, enterprises and even not-for profit-organizations to operate faster applications with greater possibilities, higher efficiency, and more improved performance. AWS added that building applications based on cloud infrastructure at Israeli data centers will also provide a higher level of security.

Google Cloud, which was awarded the Nimbus tender with AWS, launched its data center in Israel back in late 2021, based on the data center of Edge Connects in Petah Tikva and the data center of Serverfarm and Israel Infrastructure Fund (IIF) at Moshav Bnei Zion.

The losers petitioned the court

The losers in the Nimbus tender, Oracle and Microsoft, petitioned the court, although withdrawing their appeal before it was heard. Microsoft announced in 2020 that it would set up a regional cloud infrastructure in Israel but has yet to do so.

Following the establishment of its Israel region data centers and cloud infrastructure, AWS has 102 availability zones worldwide in 32 geographical regions. The Israel region has three availability zones. Each is located far enough from the others to support customer business continuity, but close enough to provide low response times for high-availability applications leveraging multiple availability zones.

Active AWS customers in Israel include Bank Hapoalim, Wiz, the Consumer Protection Authority, Migdal, the Ministry of Transport and Tnuva.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 1, 2023.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2023.

AWS server farm at Tnuvot  credit: TG Productions
AWS server farm at Tnuvot credit: TG Productions
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