Amazon Web Services Inc. on Tuesday launched a new infrastructure region in Spain that will enable local customers to access cloud services with less latency.

An AWS region is a cluster of cloud data centers located in the same geographic area. The cluster is organized into so-called Availability Zones, each of which includes one or more data centers. The new AWS infrastructure region in Spain includes three Availability Zones.

Each Availability Zone is powered by its own data center cooling and networking equipment. As a result, localized hardware malfunctions at one data center have a low chance of taking an entire infrastructure region offline. If one of the Availability Zones in a region experiences a malfunction, the other data centers can continue to operate.

Companies can distribute an application across multiple Availability Zones to reduce the risk of outages. Because the Availability Zones are located in the same geographic area, an application’s data traffic can travel between them with low latency. At the same time, the data centers are located far enough apart that a technical issue in one facility is unlikely to affect the others.

AWS says its cloud platform is used by tens thousands of companies and public sector organizations on the Iberian Peninsula. For local customers, AWS’ new infrastructure region will offer lower latency than its existing cloud data centers. The closer a data center is located to customers, the less time network traffic takes to reach the facility.

AWS plans to invest more than $2.5 billion in Spain over the next decade to grow its market presence. The cloud giant is also launching a $150,000 fund to support community projects in Aragón, the region where the new data center cluster is located.

The new data centers join four existing Amazon CloudFront edge locations that AWS operates in Spain. CloudFront edge locations are server clusters that host data near users to facilitate fast network access. AWS customers in Spain also have access to AWS Direct Connect hubs, which enable companies to establish direct network links between their on-premises infrastructure and AWS data centers. 

“The cloud enables organizations of all types and sizes to speed up innovation, improve business processes, and reinvent experiences for their customers and end users,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of infrastructure services at AWS. “We are delivering on our promise to build new world-class infrastructure locally to help customers in Spain achieve the highest levels of security, availability and resilience.”

The launch of the infrastructure region comes less than two weeks after AWS inaugurated another new data center cluster in Switzerland. It comprises three Availability Zones located near Zurich. AWS reportedly plans to invest about $6 billion in Switzerland over the next 14 years and estimates that its new infrastructure region will add $16 billion to the country’s gross domestic product over 15 years.

The Amazon.com Inc. unit currently operates 93 Availability Zones worldwide. AWS is planning to build 18 more Availability Zones and six new infrastructure regions in Australia, Canada, India, Israel, New Zealand and Thailand.

Image: AWS