AWS goes where public sector customers go

Source: AWS. Carlson delivering the keynote.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is committed to invest wherever customers want to move to.

At the first-ever AWS ASEAN Public Sector Summit in Singapore - themed Accelerating public sector innovation and transformation with cloud technology to build a better world - Teresa Carlson, VP, AWS Worldwide Public Sector said in a keynote: "It's important that we listen and we keep at it," she said. 

According to Carlson, the advantages of cloud include speed, agility, and security. Cloud customers can experiment, fail fast then move forward fast; and pay only for what they use. "They don't want to buy more than what they're using, they want to try they want to experiment and then scale," she said. "They don't want to buy a lot of technology they don't need - that's very old-school now."

Customers also want to deploy globally, she said. "We have so many partners that use so many regions. When they deploy we're going to be there in those regions."

AWS has  22 geographic regions in 69 availability zones around the world. Within the Asia Pacific Middle East area there are currently AWS regions in Bahrain, Mumbai, Ninbxia, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, Jakarta, Tokyo, and Sydney, with more to come in 2022. Carlson explained that AWS invests ahead of demand.

"That's because we're listening to you. You want services, you want data sovereignty, you want backup, you want low latency. We hear you and we continue to build and before you know it we're going to announce another region," she said.

"We're here for your mission. We're here to make sure you have the services you need."

Cloud computing helps government customers move fast, but they have to consider the following aspects of going cloud-first, Carlson said:

Security, privacy and compliance

"It's very important to have a security, privacy and compliance programme that (agencies) can snap into. You don't want to have your agency leaders keep guessing. You want a programme that is understandable and there's no guessing around it," said Carlson.

She also noted that many countries already have some form of security, compliance and privacy models for cloud, including Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Bahrain.

During the keynote Carlson announced a new service, threat detection using artificial intelligence (AI). The algorithm uses deep learning to identify indicators of attack, and is available worldwide in preview. 

Procurement vehicles

Procurement vehicles are relatively recent, and some experimentation may be required, Carlson said. Many vehicles are based on definitions from the the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and should cover scaling on demand, and the conditions under which agencies can spin up resources and spin them down.

Such purchasing models can be found in Australia, Japan and Singapore, among others.

Skills development

Carlson said that customers and partners have told her that they need skills and training. Through the AWS training and certification portal AWS provides digital, classroom and certification-based training focused on in-demand cloud skills, Carlson said.

AWS also works with thousands of academic institutions to create the next generation of cloud builders, facilitates jobs-matching, and offers self-guided learning pathways. "At the end of the day everyone gets a job," Carlson said.

Users can earn AWS certifications to help them in their careers. "We don't want to have to retrain  (but to) have the right skills for the job in real time," Carlson said.

ASEAN public sector customers include the Changi Airport Group, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore's People's Association, Ministry of Culture, Community, of Singapore; the Documentation Center of Cambodia; and Petabencana.id.