You could possibly extend the geek meme that with cloud, you’re running your application on someone else’s computer “and you don’t even know where it is”, but I’m sure that wouldn’t be appreciated.
Normally, local zones appear after the geographic regions are built. The New Zealand one isn’t built yet, so the Auckland local zone is an extension of the existing Sydney region.
To illustrate how complex cloud infrastructure can be, geographic regions have several availability zones (AZs) on them. These AZs have data centres in them; they can be multiple facilities or shared ones, but they have separate power and networks, and are located in different risk areas.
AWS Auckland will have three AZs, and the idea is to spread the risk should catastrophe strike, so that one or two remain up and running. Users tend to get very upset if the sites they use go offline.
But wait, there’s more! AWS Outposts, which Vector has been wheeling out, are ready-to-roll facilities with server racks that you plug into your fibre network and power up, and are in fact similar to Local Zones; and Wavelength, which is what AWS markets for use with 5G applications that require responsiveness.
Then there are the AWS Snow range of devices, Elastic Containers everywhere, Kubernetes, containers and much more, as the cloud really rapidly extends and moves closer to replace traditional enterprise IT.
Cloud is flexible, but the amount of options to choose from can be difficult to navigate for organisations. You only need to scratch the surface... not that you could do that physically with the cloud, but it’s easy to see why an entire ecosystem of consultants and partners has sprung up, to make the whole thing work well and affordably for organisations for which tech isn’t their core business.
Now, the point of Local Zones is giving users lower latency, delay or lag - pick your word - for data traffic.
Although the point of the cloud is that it doesn’t matter where you run workloads, as in applications, data processing, information storage and of course training artificial intelligence as it’s 2023, there are many cases when a responsive set-up is the difference between user happiness, or people raging at their machines.
Low latency, in the single-digit milliseconds, is what AWS Local Zones promise. It’s not quite like plonking down a server rack at work and connecting to that, but it’s way more responsive than connecting to Sydney, which is what the majority of New Zealand cloud computer customers have to do until AWS, Microsoft and Google fire up their local facilities.
And, there’s “data sovereignty” to be had as well. That’s a misnamed concept which means an organisation’s data doesn’t leave the country it’s domiciled in.
Customers such as TVNZ, Air New Zealand, Datacom, Deloitte, Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand, and Vector are already onboard the Local Zones, AWS said.
Netflix also loves low latency. The streaming video provider is a big user of Local Zones, AWS New Zealand general manager Tiffany Bloomquist said at a briefing.
TVNZ general manager of technology Jean-Louis Acafrao talked about using the Auckland local zone for virtual video editing workstations; now that’s a very latency-sensitive application and traditionally, you’d run the stuff on a beefy computer with very fast storage and graphics card sitting next to the editor, for best performance.
Doing so would however mean missing out on cloud features and the ability to scale resources up and down as needed, and you’d have to have staff managing the solution physically.
The amount of new features and innovation looks set to continue in the cloud. AWS has the largest market share, but it is in a death match with Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud Platform, with smaller (not by New Zealand standards, everything is relative) players chasing the Big Three, and everyone competing by shipping more features.
The challenge for cloud providers is how to match that broad offering of features to customers’ business needs. That will require some very skilled and dedicated staff that can reach across two domains at the same time.
As we don’t say here: “in Aotearoa New Zealand, cloud computing comes to you!” We could though, as the cloud continues to extend closer to everything, as we’re catching up with the world on the tech. Watch this space, and update your certifications accordingly.
