Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), has announced the launch of a new AWS Local Zone in Delhi, India. AWS Local Zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that places AWS compute, storage, database, and other services near large population, industry, and information technology (IT) centres—enabling customers to deploy applications that require single-digit millisecond latency to end users or on-premises data centres. Customers can run workloads with low latency requirements on AWS Local Zones while seamlessly connecting to the rest of their workloads running in AWS regions.
The launch marks the first international expansion of AWS Local Zones outside the U.S. and includes new locations in Delhi and Taipei, Taiwan. AWS now has 19 AWS Local Zones around the world, with announced plans to launch 31 more Local Zones globally over the next two years, including additional AWS Local Zones in India, in the cities of Chennai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata.
For applications that require single-digit millisecond latency, the location of cloud infrastructure matters. Most customer workloads run in an AWS Region, a geographic location where AWS clusters data centres to serve customers. However, when a region is not close enough to meet low latency or data residency preferences, customers need AWS infrastructure closer to their data source or end users. Organisations have traditionally maintained these location-sensitive workloads on premises or in managed data centres that require customers to procure, operate, and maintain their own IT infrastructure, and use different sets of application programming interfaces (APIs) and tools for their on-premises and AWS environments.
The launch of the new AWS Local Zone in Delhi gives customers the ability to easily deploy applications located close to end users in the metro area. Having AWS Local Zones close to large population centres in metro areas enable customers to achieve the low latency required for use cases like online gaming, live streaming, and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). They can also help customers operating in regulated sectors like health care, financial services, and public sector that might have preferences or requirements to keep data within a geographic boundary. AWS manages and supports AWS Local Zones, meaning customers do not incur the expense and effort of procuring, operating, and maintaining infrastructure in various cities to support low latency applications. AWS Local Zones can also help organisations migrate additional workloads to AWS Cloud, supporting a hybrid cloud migration strategy and simplifying IT operations. Customers can connect to AWS Local Zones through an internet connection, and they can use AWS Direct Connect for secure, private network connections to both the Local Zone and any AWS Region.
Commenting on the launch, Puneet Chandok, president, Commercial Business, AWS India and South Asia at Amazon Internet Services Private Limited, said, “With today’s launch of a new AWS Local Zone in Delhi, we are excited to bring the cloud closer to AWS customers, so they can deploy latency-sensitive workloads that help serve their end users better. We’ve designed AWS Local Zones to support a broad range of use cases—from trading applications that must respond quickly to market fluctuations to interactive live events and gaming experiences. The launch of an AWS Local Zone in Delhi is a continuation of our investment to support customers running all types of workloads by bringing the most secure, extensive, and reliable cloud infrastructure to more locations in India.”
The new AWS Local Zone in Delhi is the newest addition to AWS infrastructure in India, including the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region, 33 Amazon CloudFront edge locations, 6 AWS Direct Connect locations, and the upcoming AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region.
Meanwhile, Prabhu Rangarajan, co-founder, M2P Fintech, said, “To operate across a diverse regional landscape serving millions of end users, fintech businesses must be able to comply with industry regulations, meet local data processing requirements, and architect for disaster recovery. Having AWS Local Zones in multiple locations across Asia, including Delhi, brings the AWS Cloud closer to our customers, and makes it easier to operate in these countries. When there is an AWS Local Zone, we can eliminate the need to run our own data centres and architect for high availability, helping to simplify our operations. We are looking forward to using AWS Local Zones in India and other countries in Asia, to offer our users low latency and high-performance solutions.”
Also, Puneet Sharma, engineering leader, WinZO, said, “With increasing penetration of high-speed internet, India’s egaming community is on the rise in both metro and regional cities. The availability of AWS Local Zones allows us to cater to this community by providing low latency solutions, minimizing lags and delivering a consistent gaming experience to our end users. AWS Local Zones will also be instrumental in providing an enhanced multiplayer gaming experience, with optimised score calculations, quick results, and improved user interactions in real time. This creates an opportunity for WinZO to be the platform of choice for Indian gamers and drive business expansion.”
Further, Shabir Momin, managing director and chief technology officer, Zenga Media, said, “We leverage AWS to enhance the performance of the applications we run to edit, process, and share TV shows, sports, movies, and news. We welcome the launch of AWS Local Zones to reduce latency for time-sensitive workloads, such as live sports events, when the processing speed directly impacts our ability to deliver timely output and increase user engagement. We stream content to many countries from India, so the global expansion of AWS Local Zones will help enable us to offer customers all over the world a superior video streaming experience with faster processing and reduced latency.”
