AWS UK data centre to open next year, safe haven for British data

Amazon Web Services has said that it will be opening a data centre in the UK, possibly as soon as next year.

Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, made the announcement in a blog post in which he also mentioned the recent revelation of an AWS region being opened in South Korea in 2016.

A UK data centre will mean the opening of a third AWS region in the EU, and the plan is to have it operational before the end of 2016 – although Vogels added that the date might slip to early 2017.

Either way, we haven't got long to wait.

The local data centre will offer obvious advantages to UK businesses in terms of fast performance and low latency, and also benefits in terms of data sovereignty with storage being based in this country (which will doubtless be of interest to many organisations, given all the recent high-profile furore over safe harbour).

London calling

Computer Weekly reports that government CTO Liam Maxwell was predictably pleased to hear the news, commenting: "Not only will this mean a significant investment in the UK economy, but it means more healthy competition and innovation in the UK data centre market. This is good news for the UK government given the significant amount of data we hold that needs to be kept onshore."

A number of major UK outfits already use AWS of course, including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (for on-demand TV such as iPlayer).

The other European AWS centres are based in Dublin and Frankfurt. Where the UK one will be based wasn't mentioned, although the blog post is entitled "London Calling" so it seems likely that it will be the capital city – that would certainly make sense.

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