New AWS edge location offers customers in New Zealand up to 50 per cent improvement in latency
Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced the launch of a new AWS edge location in Auckland, New Zealand. This new edge location provides secure, reliable connectivity to the rest of the AWS global network and support for AWS edge services including Amazon CloudFront and AWS Global Accelerator. Customers can expect up to a 50 per cent improvement in latency for data delivered through this edge location. New Zealand is now connected to the AWS global infrastructure network of more than 220 Points of Presence in 87 cities across 44 countries, designed and built to deliver the most flexible, reliable, scalable, and secure cloud computing environment with the highest quality network performance.
The new AWS edge location brings the full suite of benefits provided by Amazon CloudFront, a highly secure Content Delivery Network (CDN) that accelerates the delivery of data, videos, applications, and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to users worldwide. By caching content at the Auckland edge location, Amazon CloudFront customers can benefit from improved performance, network security and application-level protection. Amazon CloudFront also protects sensitive data at the edge with protocols, encryptions, and compliance certifications, which supplement the protection delivered through integration with AWS Shield to defend against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) to provide network protection. Amazon CloudFront integrates with AWS services including Amazon S3, Elastic Load Balancing or Amazon EC2 as origins for applications, and Lambda@Edge to run custom code closer to end users and to customize the user experience.
In addition, the Auckland edge location will support AWS Global Accelerator(AGA), a service that improves the availability and performance of end user's traffic by using AWS's global network infrastructure. When the internet is congested, AGA's automatic routing optimizations help keep packet loss, jitter, and latency consistently low. The improved and more secure user experience with the launch of local AWS infrastructure will help drive the development of even more web applications and services across New Zealand in areas including education, media and entertainment, gaming, healthcare, mobile banking, eCommerce, and government services.
The new AWS edge location includes direct and low latency connectivity to New Zealand telecommunications providers including Vodafone, Spark, Vocus, 2Degrees, Kordia, Trustpower, and theNew Zealand Internet Exchange.
"New AWS edge location will help to reduce latency in serving real-time digital content to our customers, such as video, music, web-native shows and notifications, which is particularly good news for New Zealand companies that are scaling their use of AWS to deliver online broadcast services," said Nick Walton, Managing Director for AWS's Commercial Sector in New Zealand. "Using the Amazon CloudFront CDN can be considered best practice for securing access to content and protecting sensitive customer data. By using AGA, WAF and AWS Shield in parallel, customers can set protocols, encryption, and protect against common web threats to ensure compliance to regulatory standards without sacrificing performance. The launch of our first AWS edge location in New Zealand demonstrates AWS's commitment to helping local customers innovate and build, increase productivity, expand into new markets, and enhance the nation's digital infrastructure."
TVNZ is New Zealand's state-owned, commercially funded broadcaster, reaching more than two million New Zealanders. "TVNZ brings viewers the best local and international content and events. Amazon CloudFront provides us with a safe and highly reliable way to deliver our live, simulcast channels on TVNZ OnDemand to New Zealanders. The new AWS edge location provides lower latency and improved content delivery into New Zealand's networks, ensuring the best possible quality streaming experience, regardless of the end-viewers' devices. AWS's continued local investment and support for our cloud journey is an important component of TVNZ's digital future," said Jean-Louis Acafrao, GM Technology at TVNZ.
Spark New Zealand is a Kiwi telecommunications and digital services company. "We welcome the launch of an AWS edge location in New Zealand. Our business customers increasingly require fast, low latency, secure access to AWS to ensure their customers receive the best experience with their applications and content. As New Zealanders spend more time working and entertaining at home, working with AWS to improve the delivery of real-time, high-resolution content into Kiwi homes has never been more important," said Tessa Tierney, Product Director at Spark New Zealand.
Kordia is a New Zealand business telecommunications and cloud company. "Kordia's 'Best Connected' strategy offers our customers the most direct access to key cloud platforms, and the launch of the new AWS edge location in New Zealand will augment our existing AWS Direct Connectivity between AWS and our premises. We look forward to helping our customers take advantage of the business benefits presented by the AWS edge location, such as reduced latency of web applications and increased speeds in serving real-time digital content including video, music, web-native shows, and notifications," said Murray Goodman, Head of Network Products at Kordia.
AWS has been operating in New Zealand for more than seven years with local offices in Auckland and Wellington, and works with tens of thousands of active customers such as Xero, Bank of New Zealand, Air New Zealand, Vector, Soul Machines, LIC, Contact Energy, TVNZ, Vodafone, University of Auckland, and many more, to accelerate growth and improve their customer experience.
For more information on AWS's global infrastructure, go to aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure
About Amazon Web Services
For 14 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 175 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 77 Availability Zones (AZs) within 24 geographic regions, with announced plans for nine more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Japan, and Spain. Millions of customers-including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies-trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
