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Synthesis Software Technologies welcomes the recent announcement that Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) will be opening an infrastructure region, in Cape Town in the first half of 2020. AWS is the world’s leading cloud platform provider, and the new region, will be its first on the African continent.

The new AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region will consist of three Availability Zones at launch. Currently, AWS provides 57 Availability Zones across 23 infrastructure regions worldwide, with another 73 Availability Zones across four AWS Regions in Bahrain, Hong Kong SAR, Italy, and Sweden expected to come online between the end of 2018 and early 2020.

As the first AWS Consulting Partner to reach Advanced Partner status in Africa and the Middle East, and with 80 AWS certifications under its belt, Synthesis is perfectly positioned to leverage the benefits of the new AWS Region for South African businesses. Recently, Synthesis was awarded AWS DevOps Competency status, following their AWS Financial Services Competency achievement in August 2018.

According to a recent official AWS press release, the new AWS Region will enable customers to run workloads in South Africa and serve end-users across the African continent with even lower latency and high availability. The new region will also enable more African organisations to leverage advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile services, and more to drive innovation. Local AWS customers will also be able to store their data in South Africa with the assurance that their content will not move without consent, while those looking to comply with the upcoming Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) will have access to secure infrastructure that meets the most rigorous international compliance standards.

Synthesis expects the new region to deliver clear benefits to South African companies and to the South African economy, as Michael Shapiro, Synthesis’ Managing Director, explains. “Having local access to the world’s most comprehensive and widely adopted cloud platform is going to provide a huge step up for South African and African companies. Those looking to migrate to the cloud, or expand their cloud presence, will be able to easily build their businesses through the flexibility and cost savings that AWS delivers. Companies such as ourselves are ready to take advantage of dedicated, world-leading infrastructure, and the full suite of AWS services to grow and provide even more innovative solutions to our customers. This announcement from AWS demonstrates both global commitment, and confidence in the continent. We agree that technology has the opportunity to change lives and improve economies across Africa.”

“Our commitment to Africa started in 2004 when the original idea for Amazon EC2 was born in Cape Town,” said Geoff Brown, Africa Leader, Amazon Web Services. “Since then, our investments in the Amazon Development Center, Direct Connect, Amazon CloudFront, and now a region in South Africa is a result of our customer feedback. Synthesis Software Technologies represents a further extension of our customer needs. Their commitment to certifying engineers on AWS is remarkable. We are thrilled to support our customers with the consulting and delivery expertise from Synthesis.”

“We are proud of our longstanding relationship with AWS and to be their top-rated partner in this region,” Shapiro added. “We have a great track record of delivering innovative, transformative cloud solutions, and when the new region is fully operational our ability to do so will be given a significant boost. We are excited to assist more enterprises locally with their migration to cloud, and to deliver the scale, cost savings and innovation that the platform promises.”

ENDS