The first Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit in Dubai took place on May 1st, bringing together technologists from all industries and skill levels to discover how AWS can help them innovate quickly and deliver flexible, reliable cloud solutions at scale.
The keynote was delivered by Mike Clayville, Vice President Worldwide Commercial Sales and Business Development, AWS, who gave an overview of the latest AWS services, and the many ways that customers around the world and in the Middle East are leveraging cloud technologies to help their organizations innovate and scale. The keynote also included AWS customer stories from the region, including Al Tayer Group, Union Insurance, and MBC, who spoke about how they are using the AWS cloud for agility, innovation, and digital transformation.
AWS Summits take place in major cities around the world to help participants develop the skills to design, deploy, and operate cloud infrastructure and applications. The full day summit includes various educational and training sessions on topics ranging from how to get started on AWS to the many ways that the AWS cloud enables innovative technologies such as AI, IoT, and machine learning.
Amazon Web Services has been active in the Middle East for many years and has been accelerating investments in the region over the past year. In January 2017, AWS opened offices in the region to serve its rapidly growing customer base and now has a presence in Dubai, UAE, and Manama, Bahrain with teams of account managers, solutions architects, partner managers, professional services consultants, support staff, and various other functions for customers to directly engage with AWS.
The company also announced plans to open data centers in the Middle East, to be available in 2019. The new AWS Middle East Region in Bahrain will consist of three Availability Zones at launch, each consisting of one or more data centers. This will bring flexible, affordable, reliable, and secure cloud computing technologies close to end users across the Middle East to help organizations speed up their digital transformation initiatives and more rapidly innovate for the citizens of the region.
