The brand new AWS Europe (Zurich) Area and 16 years of Swiss innovation


A while in the past, I wrote to you about our plans to launch a brand new AWS Area in Switzerland. The wait is over. Beginning in the present day, now you can use the AWS Europe (Zurich) Area.

I’ve been considering loads currently about how the cloud, and extra particularly AWS, has developed since we first launched in 2006. Again then the cloud was a spot. It was a single spot that you might level to on a map. For Amazon, that place was us-east-1 in North Virginia. Now the cloud is in every single place – it’s round us. AWS covers 6 continents, 28 Areas, and 90 Availability Zones. Entry to infrastructure is now not a bottleneck for innovation. However this wasn’t at all times the case.

For a very long time, the largest constraint on innovation was the associated fee to buy and function {hardware} at scale. With the cloud, this constraint disappeared virtually in a single day. {Hardware} grew to become a programmable useful resource that you might spin up and spin down at a second’s discover. AWS gave you entry to as a lot capability as you needed, everytime you needed it – and for the primary time, it was inexpensive. For those who can think about it, again in 2006 we solely had a single EC2 occasion, the m1.small. Right this moment, there are properly over 500 situations, every little thing from huge reminiscence machines to Apple M1s (and for the historical past buffs, here’s a timeline of EC2 releases).

Now we have by no means seemed again. Now we have by no means stopped innovating for our clients.

One thing that I’ve seen over time, is that the concepts that dramatically change the way in which that we take into consideration or do issues are not often novel. Moderately, they’re usually a mixture of an present idea with a brand new strategy, a brand new know-how, a brand new functionality.

Whereas I used to be in Zurich for Swiss Cloud Day, I had an opportunity to fulfill with Verity, an AWS buyer that’s reimagining warehouse logistics. Now, everyone knows that utilizing robotic programs in warehouses is nothing new – we use them extensively at Amazon. They assist people type gadgets into bins, choose merchandise off of cabinets, and robotically package deal them for supply. Nonetheless, Verity is constructing on this.

They’ve created a totally autonomous stock administration system. Self-flying drones geared up with environmental sensors and cameras can constantly monitor a warehouse offering real-time stock monitoring that’s extraordinarily correct. In lots of circumstances, it utterly removes the necessity to manually depend inventory and reduces the necessity to run equipment related to it. This frees up employees to carry out extra precious duties, reduces threat, and saves energy on the identical time. And that is simply the beginning, extra knowledge will reveal further insights and alternatives for purchasers. AWS is offering the providers that permit Verity to give attention to making warehouses greener, safer, and extra environment friendly, not on working and sustaining infrastructure.

If I’m being sincere, that is the kind of innovation I’ve come to count on from our Swiss clients. You’ve been with us from our earliest days and I’m excited to see what you construct subsequent.

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