Bahrain to host first AWS ground station in Middle East
BAHRAIN will host the regional control centre of a cloud satellite network, which can be used for weather forecasting, surface imaging, communications and video broadcasts.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will base its first Middle East ground station in the country, it was announced yesterday.
Details were shared by the company’s Worldwide Public Sector vice-president Teresa Carlson during a keynote at the AWS Summit, which continues today at the Gulf Hotel, Bahrain.
“We’re going to launch AWS Ground Station in Bahrain with support from the Economic Development Board (EDB) and it will be the first of its kind in the Middle East region,” she said, without revealing more.
The AWS website describes ground stations as the core of global satellite networks, which provide communications links with satellites in space, allowing operators to downlink data.
In May, the company announced it was locating ground stations near its data storage centres, allowing customers quick access to Amazon’s cloud services.
Meanwhile, AWS came on stream in Bahrain, which it had chosen as a regional hub for its cloud computing services, in July.
It operates from three sites in Bahrain, each with independent power, cooling and physical security to reduce the risk of breach or outage.
A total of 36 AWS partners launched services simultaneously, with others expected to come on board shortly.
After the Bahrain operation went live the AWS footprint now spans 69 zones within 22 geographic regions around the world.
Ms Carlson said the company had already announced 30,000 job openings globally, with some of them in Bahrain.
In July it emerged AWS was planning a cloud computing certification programme in partnership with Bahrain University, a first in the Middle East.
The programme includes a one-year cloud computing certificate and a full four-year cloud computing Bachelor’s degree.
The certificate course will be offered early next year, while the degree will be introduced in the second half of 2020.
“The four-year degree will equip students with technical skills and hands-on experiences to prepare them for careers including cloud architecture, cybersecurity and software development,” she said.
The programme will initially be offered to students in the engineering, ICT and business colleges and subsequently offered across all degree courses by 2021.”
Former EDB chief executive Khalid Al Rumaihi, who remains a member of its board, told a Press conference on the sidelines of yesterday’s event that 2,500 Bahrainis had already signed up for AWS training programmes.
AWS expects 10,000 data solutions architects will be required in the Middle East in the next five years.
Information and eGovernment Authority (iGA) deputy chief executive for operations and governance, Shaikh Salman bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, said Bahrain was undergoing a digital transformation.
“We’ve got 1,100 servers ready to go into the AWS cloud and using AWS allowed us to focus on one thing, what is important,” he said.
“Focusing on selecting the right technology to reduce cost and develop faster is key.”
The iGA expects that by December 30 per cent of all 72 government entities will have migrated to AWS and, by June 2020, most government data centres will be shut down.
Source: http://www.gdnonline.com/Details/608416
