UPDATED 15:31 EDT / APRIL 15 2014

Google bolsters global cloud presence with Asian data centers

cloud eyes perception thought bubble opinion customer careAmazon’s SVP Andy Jassy, the man who helped turn Amazon Web Services (AWS) into the industry’s most expansive cloud platform, defines AWS’s breadth not only in terms of service functionality but also reach. The vendor’s massive global infrastructure footprint has become one of its most important differentiators in the wake of rapidly increasing demand in international markets, where customers – especially large organizations – expect low latency as well as the ability to keep sensitive data within their home jurisdictions.

The importance of maintaining a local presence has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the industry. Oracle last November revealed plans to open four new cloud data centers across Canada and Germany to simplify compliance for enterprise clients with regional operations, and two months later, IBM committed $1.2 billion to building 15 additional facilities around the world for a total of 40.

Google, a contender for Amazon’s throne, is also taking a page out of Jassy’s book. The search giant on Tuesday launched new availability zones in Taiwan and Singapore as part of a push to strengthen its foothold in the Asia-Pacific, which ranks as the fastest growing region of the global economy. It also added Chinese and Japanese to the list of supported languages on the Google Compute Engine website and developer console. The move signals the company’s intentions to expand its cloud presence to more Asian markets, including Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, according to a report by the Focus Taiwan News Channel.

Google may still be playing catch-up to AWS in the global arena, but it had already marked a decisive move in the cloud pricing wars last month after slashing the rates on its BigQuery data analytics service by a massive 85 percent. The company also lowered storage costs by 65 percent and shaved 32 percent off compute instances. Amazon promptly responded with double-digit discounts of its own, and Microsoft too jumped into the fray a few days later, following through on its 2013 commitment to match the retail-turned-cloud giant.

Most recently, Google entered a partnership with Red Hat to let users move their Enterprise Linux subscriptions to its cloud platform. The firms announced the agreement five months after the search giant originally joined the Red Hat Certified Cloud Provider program.

photo credit: Tau Zero via photopin cc

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