Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a new AWS Local Zones location in Lagos, Nigeria.
AWS describes Local Zones as a new type of infrastructure designed to run workloads that require single-digit millisecond latency, like video rendering and graphics intensive, virtual desktop applications.
The Lagos State Government, Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC, and The Terragon Group are among customers.
These workloads require availability zone resources to run effectively, but, as AWS explains, not every customer wants to operate their own on-premise availability zone, while others may be interested in getting rid of their local availability zone entirely.
READ ALSO:
US- Indian launches Alliance to boost number of women in STEM and workforce
IBM Partner MBZUAI to Launch an Advanced AI for Climate and Culture
Connectbase Partners with LB Networks
Local Zones allow customers to gain all the benefits of having compute and storage resources closer to end-users, without the need to own and operate their own availability zone infrastructure, AWS continues.
A statement released by AWS reads: “The launch of the new AWS Local Zones location in Lagos means customers can easily deploy applications located close to end users in the metro area. Having AWS Local Zones close to large population centres in metro areas enables customers to achieve the low latency required for use cases like online gaming, live streaming, and augmented and virtual reality. AWS Local Zones can also help customers operating in regulated sectors like healthcare, financial services, and public sector that might have preferences or requirements to keep data within a geographic boundary.”
Robin Njiru, AWS regional public sector lead for West, East, and Central Africa, says, “With today’s launch of a new AWS Local Zones location in Lagos, we are proud to bring the cloud closer to AWS customers, so they can deploy latency-sensitive workloads and meet local data residency requirements. We’ve designed Local Zones to support a broad range of use cases – from trading applications that need to respond quickly to market fluctuations to interactive live event and gaming experiences. Customers in a variety of industries can now deliver new innovative services and experiences to their end users, all with familiar AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools.”
Hakeem Popoola Fahm, Honourable Commissioner Lagos State Ministry of Science and Technology, says, “The launch of the AWS Local Zone location in Lagos is a significant milestone for our regional enterprises and digital transformation agenda. The services available with AWS Local Zones will promote and accelerate the introduction of new digital solutions at our technology and engineering location in the heart of Lagos.”
Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC is a financial service holding company in Nigeria with subsidiaries in banking, stock brokerage, investment advisory, asset management, investor services, pension management, trustees, and life insurance businesses.
“Being a future-ready organisation goes beyond being able to deploy new solutions for the benefit of our customers,” says Demola Sogunle, CEO at Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC. “It also means building reliability into our business and customer offerings through the use of AWS compute, storage, and on-demand scaling. This is why we have chosen to work with AWS, one of the world’s leading cloud service providers, to achieve this important objective.”
The Terragon Group is a Nigerian start-up building Africa’s largest data-powered marketing cloud ecosystem and driving business growth by providing deeper understanding of African consumers and their experience on mobile.
Ayodeji Balogun, co-founder and CTO at the Terragon Group, adds, “Every single day, AWS helps us scale globally and take advantage of new technological opportunities. The launch of an AWS Local Zones location in Lagos is something we have been looking forward to because it offers fast, secure access to AWS services that help us deliver low latency access to our applications running locally.”
