Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the launch of its Asia Pacific (Seoul) Region, the company’s fifth cloud infrastructure region in Asia Pacific (APAC). The Seoul Region consists of two AWS Availability Zones at launch. Each Availability Zone includes one or more geographically distinct data centers, each with redundant power, networking, and connectivity.
Many thousands of Korean customers have been using the AWS Cloud from other AWS Regions for several years. Now, with the launch of the Seoul Region, Korea-based developers and companies, as well as multinational companies with end users in Korea, can “securely” store and process their data in AWS in Korea with “single-digit millisecond” latency across most of Korea.
Each AWS Availability Zone is designed to be resilient to any issues in another Availability Zone, enabling customers to operate production applications and databases that are more highly available, fault tolerant, and scalable than would be possible from a single data center.
“Customers continue to choose AWS Cloud as their infrastructure technology platform because we have a lot more functionality than any other cloud provider, a significantly larger partner and customer ecosystem built around AWS, and unmatched maturity, security, and performance,” said Andy Jassy, Senior Vice President, Amazon Web Services (AWS). “Our Korean customers and partners have asked us to build AWS Cloud infrastructure in Korea so that they can run more of their workloads on AWS and approve new initiatives that could change their business and customer experience; we’re excited about delivering this to our customers today.”
With this launch, the AWS Cloud is now available from 32 Availability Zones across 12 geographic regions worldwide, with another four AWS Regions (and nine Availability Zones) in China, India, Ohio, and the United Kingdom to be available in the coming year.
AWS Cloud Partner Ecosystem
Along with the new Seoul region, AWS has also worked to build a vibrant local cloud technology ecosystem in Korea. The rapidly expanding AWS Partner Network (APN) in Korea includes Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Systems Integrators (SIs) who are building solutions and services around the AWS Cloud.
ISV partners such as Ahnlab, Dreamline, Hancom, IGAWorks, and TMAXSoft are providing a variety of software, security, and connectivity solutions that can be used in conjunction with AWS Cloud. SI partners including Bespin Global, GS Neotek, Megazone, and Vsystems are helping enterprises to migrate to AWS Cloud, deploy mission-critical applications on AWS, or are providing a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services of customers’ AWS environments.
AWS is also delivering its AWS Educate Program to help promote cloud learning in the classroom with eight local universities, including Sogang University, Yonsei University, and Seoul National University. Since its launch locally in May 2015, over 1,000 Korean students are participating in AWS-related classes and non-profit e-learning programs, such as ‘Like a Lion.’
