AWS Launches New Local Zones In Lagos

Amazon Web Services has announced the launch of a new AWS Local Zones location in Lagos, Nigeria.

AWS Local Zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that places AWS compute, storage, databases, and other services near large population, industry, and 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.

This launch of 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 centers 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.

For applications that require single-digit millisecond latency or have to remain within a geographic boundary for regulatory reasons, the location of cloud infrastructure matters. Most customer workloads run in an AWS Region, a geographic location where AWS clusters data centers to serve customers.

However, when a Region is not close enough to meet low latency or data residency requirements, customers need AWS infrastructure closer to their data source or end users. Traditionally, organizations maintained these location-sensitive workloads on premises or in managed data centers.

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.

“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,” said Robin Njiru, AWS regional public sector lead for West, East, and Central Africa, as quoted by Tech Cabal.

“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,” he added.

The AWS Local Zones location in Lagos is Nigeria’s newest addition to its AWS infrastructure, which already includes local offices, Amazon CloudFront edge locations, and AWS Outposts.