Amazon Web Services announced that it has launched Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) service in the European Union today.
The service has been available in the United States in closed beta since the fall and open to all users since December. Starting today, AWS customers can connect their existing IT infrastructure to AWS resources in the EU, enabling lower latency and the ability to ensure that data remains in the EU, easing compliance with EU data privacy laws.
Amazon VPC is a secure bridge between a company’s existing IT infrastructure and the AWS cloud. Amazon VPC enables enterprises to connect their existing infrastructure to a set of isolated AWS compute resources via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, and to extend their existing management capabilities such as security services, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems to include their AWS resources. Customers deploying Amazon VPC in the EU region can now operate more closely to their existing IT infrastructures in the EU. The service does not require any long-term contracts, minimum spend or up-front investments and users pay only for the resources used.
“We’re excited to announce Amazon VPC’s arrival in Europe as it gives enterprises the attractive combination of being able to further isolate their AWS resources, use all the same security and management tools they normally use, yet still take advantage of the most powerful benefits of the cloud,” said Adam Selipsky, Vice President of Amazon Web Services.
Amazon VPC enables AWS customers to create an isolated set of AWS resources that they then access via an industry-standard encrypted IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. Using API calls, users create their isolated network, specify the IP address range of their own choosing, and then launch Amazon EC2 instances into that network. Users then create a secure VPN to bridge those AWS resources to their existing IT infrastructure. Cloud traffic routes over the VPN where the customer’s existing security and networking technologies can manage it before heading to the public Internet. With Amazon VPC, customers can access their resources running in the AWS cloud as if these assets were running within their existing IT infrastructure.
Software AG currently leverages AWS as a SaaS platform for its ARISalign social Business Productivity Management (BPM) solution, making BPM accessible to everyone in the enterprise. “Software AG selected AWS for its secure, reliable, and scalable technology infrastructure platform in the cloud,” said Matt Green, Vice President of Product Management & Product Marketing. “We’re pleased to see Amazon VPC launch in the EU as it will enable Software AG to deliver an environment in which our customers can be assured ease of management and seamless extensibility to existing on-premise security tools.”
Ebiquity, a UK media and marketing firm has been looking forward to the launch of Amazon VPC in the EU. “Ebiquity takes data security very seriously and we use many tools and services internally to ensure our data is protected,” said Glen Robinson, Head of Information Technology at Ebiquity. Until now we have had to setup static services to provide a VPN service from our sites into the cloud. We have been anticipating the arrival of Amazon VPC in the EU for some time and are excited to extend our current security network and protocols into the AWS environment.”
