For those in London wondering where is best for UK based customers, it seems, for London at least, this could be an improvement over Dublin (where Frankfurt is slower), as Paris is roughly 70 miles closer. Of course, depending on where / when [1] a UK-based data centre is released, I'd imagine that would be faster still.
Currently Ireland vs. Frankfurt is (more data needed of course)[2]:
Europe (Ireland): 25 ms 27 ms 24 ms
Europe (Frankfurt): 39 ms 39 ms 42 ms
And Frankfurt is about 100 miles further than Dublin.
For anyone using Virgin Media as their ISP, the Dublin DC will perform more predictably, if not faster, because of VM's "give preference to data originating inside the UK/Ireland and don't give two shits about anything else" attitude.
If you run a data heavy service, PoP inside the UK or Ireland is a must if you want to avoid throttling and heavy-handed traffic shapping.
I've found latency in the UK can be about a third lower than Ireland. I used Bytemark for testing in my recent book but Azure have UK regions now [0] and DO have had a London DC for a couple of years [1]. AWS UK is currently just "coming soon" [2] but Werner has said "end of 2016 (or early 2017)" [3].
What is the state of the temporary spy laws in France?
Shouldn't it at least be mentioned in the announcement that the french government can pretty much ask Amazon for any of your data without a warrant. Or is the situation better than a year ago?
EDIT: Warrant is apparently needed as noplay said.
They need warrant to get access to your server. What they can do is to collect metadata in some points of the network, they don't need amazon to do that, because they target end users.
But it's probably not a good idea to host in France if you have not reason to do that. Like NSA, french secret service just don't care about laws. But if you target french customer that's good news you have one more alternative for hosting without trouble with regulation about data.
If you're referring to the current "state of emergency" (état d'urgence) it has been extended multiple times already since nov '15, and allows warrantless searches (perquisition administrative).
The last extension is effective since 2016-07-26 and is supposed to last 6 months.
In France, we have some consideration toward power separation. Police and secret services can collect your data mostly without a warrant. Government can exceptionally ask the police some data, but if there are abuses, the judicial power will intervene.
Still no further info on the London region since their announcement post[1] said:
> Today, I am excited to add the United Kingdom to that list! The AWS UK region will be our third in the European Union (EU), and we're shooting to have it ready by the end of 2016 (or early 2017). This region will provide even lower latency and strong data sovereignty to local users.
> This will be the fourth AWS Region in Europe. We currently have two other Regions in Europe — EU (Ireland) and EU (Frankfurt) and an additional Region in the UK expected to launch in the coming months.
Since UK is about to be outside of the EU it's likely this has been put on hold?
I don't know what the facts are but I'm guessing the UK accounts for a large slice of data currently being routed via Ireland, so it isn't going to be on hold for long?
I do sincerely wished Amazon would have consider changing their AWS service management UI and workflow as well as epanding their servers around the globe.
Currently it is an incredibly inefficient design of a service management trying to do everything yet many are dependent for using it.
Its worth commenting that we here in Microsoft Azure team (our cloud platform) have data centers in 30 regions including UK, Germany, etc. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/regions/
Our platform is very mature now I wish more folks would give it a shot.
I don't know how it currently compares with AWS but some time ago the disk IO was a lot slower, and the prices were way higher.
Does anyone know of recent comparisons?
> p.s. we also take EU people data privacy very seriously.
Hmmm. I find that very hard to believe.
MS is going to have to be _very_ good for a _long_ time to overcome firing the late Caspar Bowden (then MS' chief privacy adviser) for telling regional managers that the NSA can pwn their customers' data. https://twitter.com/casparbowden/status/542588420611379201
So this is great however I have a very large concern.
In a U.S. AWS data center, I am very confident (right now) that my encryption keys and encrypted data will never be given out to any governmental agency. Even with a warrant, they can not access my data unencrypted.
What will Amazon do when the French government says hand us all of your keys or else...
As our data is all extremely sensitive financial information, we really can not even take that chance until we know.
Clarification: We send all data over HTTPS with AES 256 encryption.
If authorities have a warrant for data, can we hand them the encrypted data and say the keys are in the U.S. and we can't give them to you?
Would you feel better if NSA gets your data using a warrant signed by a secret court and gags Amazon using a NSL? Why do you think that US agencies can ask Lavabit to hand encryption keys, but the same can't happen with Amazon?
Comparing with the US I don't remember that France has any gag laws.
All Internet traffic in and out of Israel goes through three undersea cables connecting the country with Turkey, Greece, and Italy, and as such suffer from the kind of lag that happens when you're separated from your destination server by a couple thousand kilometers, usually more. There are no local cloud providers and the local entrepreneurial culture (which is MASSIVE for such a small country) either has to pay for cloud resources in Europe or has to pay for local non-cloud hosting, which is orders of magnitude more expensive and running on relatively ancient hardware (the local VPS shops have little incentive to upgrade).
Amazon will come to Israel if they deem it profitable. They aren't exactly Google Fiber though, so I think they would avoid locating themselves in areas with poor connectivity options in the first place.
To figure out where the next AWS regions are going, go down the wikipedia list of countries by GDP and try to think which large markets are not well served yet:
In the Middle East there are several markets larger than Israel, and putting a region in Israel will probably not be tenable for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the like.
There is no region in Africa...
Russia & Eastern Europe is not that well served...
Nothing in NZ either, 2500KM minimum for our data to go to get to any of the large cloud service providers in Sydney. Worth the lag though for the cost savings.
[+] [-] dazbradbury|9 years ago|reply
Currently Ireland vs. Frankfurt is (more data needed of course)[2]:
And Frankfurt is about 100 miles further than Dublin.But for a quick test, this looks like a good tool: http://www.cloudping.info/
Will be interested to test this once released to see UK / Paris vs. Dublin.
[1] Article states UK region "due in coming months". No location announced?
[2] Hitting ec2.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com vs. ec2.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com.
[+] [-] arviewer|9 years ago|reply
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/coming-in-2017-new-aws-regi...
[+] [-] aroch|9 years ago|reply
If you run a data heavy service, PoP inside the UK or Ireland is a must if you want to avoid throttling and heavy-handed traffic shapping.
[+] [-] jonatron|9 years ago|reply
(To Ireland) --- dynamodb.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com ping statistics --- 100 packets transmitted, 100 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 15.306/22.425/63.455/9.655 ms
To Softlayer Paris: --- speedtest.par01.softlayer.com ping statistics --- 100 packets transmitted, 100 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 12.082/16.196/54.741/7.652 ms
[+] [-] jsingleton|9 years ago|reply
[0] https://unop.uk/azure-eu-regions-naming-confusion
[1] https://www.digitalocean.com/company/blog/introducing-our-lo...
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure
[3] http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2015/11/aws-announces-uk...
[+] [-] timv|9 years ago|reply
At the bottom of the English section it says it's London
The new European region, coupled with the existing AWS Regions in Dublin and Frankfurt, and a future one in London,
[+] [-] rloc|9 years ago|reply
This might also allow for mixing critical server roles hosted in other Paris data centers with AWS.
I'm thinking about connecting a web server (in AWS) with a DB server (in another Paris DC) while keeping the latency at a low level.
[+] [-] madeofpalk|9 years ago|reply
For bonus points, choose the same DC that AWS is actually in http://www.equinix.com/locations/france-colocation/france-da...
[+] [-] widforss|9 years ago|reply
Shouldn't it at least be mentioned in the announcement that the french government can pretty much ask Amazon for any of your data without a warrant. Or is the situation better than a year ago?
EDIT: Warrant is apparently needed as noplay said.
[+] [-] noplay|9 years ago|reply
But it's probably not a good idea to host in France if you have not reason to do that. Like NSA, french secret service just don't care about laws. But if you target french customer that's good news you have one more alternative for hosting without trouble with regulation about data.
[+] [-] lloeki|9 years ago|reply
The last extension is effective since 2016-07-26 and is supposed to last 6 months.
[+] [-] reacweb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5h|9 years ago|reply
> Today, I am excited to add the United Kingdom to that list! The AWS UK region will be our third in the European Union (EU), and we're shooting to have it ready by the end of 2016 (or early 2017). This region will provide even lower latency and strong data sovereignty to local users.
[1] http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2015/11/aws-announces-uk...
[+] [-] arviewer|9 years ago|reply
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/coming-in-2017-new-aws-regi...
> This will be the fourth AWS Region in Europe. We currently have two other Regions in Europe — EU (Ireland) and EU (Frankfurt) and an additional Region in the UK expected to launch in the coming months.
[+] [-] otterley|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dazc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grif-fin|9 years ago|reply
Currently it is an incredibly inefficient design of a service management trying to do everything yet many are dependent for using it.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbarr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voltagex_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LyalinDotCom|9 years ago|reply
Our platform is very mature now I wish more folks would give it a shot.
p.s. we also take EU people data privacy very seriously. https://www.thefastmode.com/technology-solutions/9077-micros...
[+] [-] LoneWolf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] M2Ys4U|9 years ago|reply
Hmmm. I find that very hard to believe.
MS is going to have to be _very_ good for a _long_ time to overcome firing the late Caspar Bowden (then MS' chief privacy adviser) for telling regional managers that the NSA can pwn their customers' data. https://twitter.com/casparbowden/status/542588420611379201
[+] [-] discodave|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cshelton|9 years ago|reply
In a U.S. AWS data center, I am very confident (right now) that my encryption keys and encrypted data will never be given out to any governmental agency. Even with a warrant, they can not access my data unencrypted.
What will Amazon do when the French government says hand us all of your keys or else...
As our data is all extremely sensitive financial information, we really can not even take that chance until we know.
Clarification: We send all data over HTTPS with AES 256 encryption. If authorities have a warrant for data, can we hand them the encrypted data and say the keys are in the U.S. and we can't give them to you?
[+] [-] idlewords|9 years ago|reply
1) Keeping keys to extremely sensitive financial data on a cloud server
2) Confident that the US government won't request this information through warrant or national security letter
3) Asking for advice about this on a message board?
[+] [-] shmel|9 years ago|reply
Comparing with the US I don't remember that France has any gag laws.
[+] [-] ris|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] solatic|9 years ago|reply
All Internet traffic in and out of Israel goes through three undersea cables connecting the country with Turkey, Greece, and Italy, and as such suffer from the kind of lag that happens when you're separated from your destination server by a couple thousand kilometers, usually more. There are no local cloud providers and the local entrepreneurial culture (which is MASSIVE for such a small country) either has to pay for cloud resources in Europe or has to pay for local non-cloud hosting, which is orders of magnitude more expensive and running on relatively ancient hardware (the local VPS shops have little incentive to upgrade).
Do we have to beg for Amazon to come here?!
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|9 years ago|reply
> (the local VPS shops have little incentive to upgrade)
> Do we have to beg for Amazon to come here?!
I'm surprised nobody has stepped in and built out their own cloud offering.
[+] [-] runeks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] discodave|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
In the Middle East there are several markets larger than Israel, and putting a region in Israel will probably not be tenable for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the like.
There is no region in Africa...
Russia & Eastern Europe is not that well served...
[+] [-] boznz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thaxll|9 years ago|reply