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Amazon Web Services announced that they plan to build a cloud region or data center cluster in Switzerland. The move will support several local companies and the public sector organizations that will use the platform.

The announcement is just another move by AWS to expand in Europe. In recent years, the company has been accelerating its efforts to dominate the market. The planned Swiss cloud region should be open sometime in the second half of 2022.

In AWS terms, a cloud region describes a group of data centers (usually three) located close enough to enable faster transfer of data and protect against local outages that could take them all offline.

Capturing the Swiss market

Companies can access their workloads across multiple data centers in a region to reduce downtime. AWS already has a presence in Switzerland. The Amazon.com unit opened two local offices in the last four years, located in Zurich and Geneva.

The unit also has many job opportunities listed on the Swiss career page.

AWS is already used by companies Novartis and Roche Holding. The cloud giant has a long list of public sector clients, including the Swiss national postal service. The planned cloud region will open new opportunities for AWS in the public and enterprise sectors.

AWS expansion efforts

There are more benefits with this planned expansion because the new cloud region will enable AWS to support large multinational customers who want to effectively provide Switzerland-based employees and facilities with low-latency access to cloud resources.

AWS is known for regularly adding new data centers to its cloud. It has stepped up its efforts to expand in Europe since 2017. Three of the six cloud regions it has have all been launched in the past three years.

Now, they are building two more. This Swiss region is one of the two. The other will be in Spain. 

Tip: AWS emphasises the importance of a Well Architected Framework