Amazon expanding Israeli footprint with new infrastructure for cloud services
Amazon Web Services’ Israeli presence will allow local companies using the platform to provide their end users with faster operation speeds
Tech giant Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is expanding its operations in Israel. The firm said it was launching local infrastructure for its CloudFront content delivery network, which allows clients to easily distribute large data files such as videos around the globe.
According to Amazon, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) network already maintains 188 nodes in 70 cities across 31 countries. It promised that the new roll-out will enable 75 percent faster performance for local end-users of companies using its services.
“As we continue to support our clients in Israel, we are pleased to expand our presence with the launch of AWS’s first infrastructure in the country,” Harel Ifhar, who runs AWS services in Israel, said in a statement. “Innovative Israeli startups, enterprise organizations and public sector clients are adopting AWS services at a rapid pace and we are supporting this growth with the launch of Amazon CloudFront. Amazon CloudFront’s new local presence puts Israel on [the] AWS Global Infrastructure Map.”
The announcement comes less than a month after it was reported that Amazon was in talks with Israeli officials to set up a public cloud-based regional data center, possibly in the south of Israel, to provide cloud-based services to government ministries and other public entities in Israel.
While Amazon maintains a corporate presence in Israel, it does not run the same kind of consumer services here that it does abroad. In late July, Haaretz reported that the launch of Amazon’s e-commerce services in Israel has been delayed as the US online retail giant struggles to recruit local resellers.
Amazon was scheduled to start its local e-commerce operations in June or July, with services and products targeting specifically the Israeli audience. A new date has not been set, Haaretz said, though on the Calcalist financial website said the firm is gearing up to launch its services in September, citing Israeli retailers who said they had received notice from Amazon.
