Published on the 23/04/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Amazon was among the first of the global cloud giants to set up shop in Sydney – and it’s a decision that has paid off with iconic Australian brands increasingly harnessing its services…
Qantas, Atlassian and Reckon were among the high profile Australian brands which this week showcased the extent of their reliance on Amazon Web Services’ local cloud solutions.
Amazon began to serve up its local cloud offering in 2012 out of two data centres in Sydney which are separated to the extent that they are on separate flood plains (very useful this week when Sydney has been inundated with rain) and use different power and communications networks to ensure greater resilience.
These cloud instances connect to AWS’ global network but users can select where their data is stored in the network.
By the end of March this year, Amazon’s decision to invest in a local cloud had also earned it a slot on the Federal Government’s cloud services panel.
Besides attracting a host of local companies and the interest of Government in its service, enticed by the combination of low latency and the ability to keep data in Australia, AWS has also spawned a community of around 1400 Amazon-savvy technicians who meet regularly to share war stories. Their next Geek Meet is scheduled for this evening at the York Street Bavarian Bier Café in Sydney.
While there is a growing geek community, attendance at the company’s AWS Summit in Sydney this week was impacted by the severe storms which battered New South Wales, with delegates attending the event reporting half empty halls.
Amazon nevertheless was able to boast of a series of significant wins including Qantas which is transitioning its website across to the local cloud.
Geek pin-up Atlassian also announced that its highly scaleable Git solution, Stash, would now support deployments on AWS. Stash can be used to manage Git repositories, which manage version control for software developers. Making that available on and for the AWS cloud will support developers creating cloud-based solutions.
Stash licenses start from $10 for ten users on AWS.
Meanwhile Australian accounting software company Reckon this week announced updates to its Reckon One cloud solution which is hosted on the Sydney AWS cloud. Access to that service starts at $5 a month.
