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You might be wondering "why Cape Town"? when it is right at the bottom of Africa, and the Southern African business hub is around Johannesburg, 1262 km / 784 m

You might be wondering "why Cape Town"? when it is right at the bottom of Africa, and the Southern African business hub is around Johannesburg, 1262 km / 784 miles away, and the next area that needs it is Lagos, Nigeria ( 4760 km / 2958 miles). However I think there are some upsides to Cape Town, i.e. 1) AWS already has team and infrastructure there in Cape Town. It is a bit of a tech hub as well. 2) Submarine cables land in Cape Town - and they cannot in Johannesburg as it is far inland. By length of internet cable, Cape Town is actually closer than it seems to other parts of Africa. (a) a lot of the connectivity is around the coast, not so much over land. There's probably a shorter ping time between Lagos and Cape Town than there is between Lagos and Johannesburg, despite the map distances being the other way around. 3) The further north you go from Cape Town, the closer you are to data centres in Europe. Cape Town is closest to exactly those parts that are worst served by Europe. I have no inside knowledge as to AWS chose Cape Town, but those seem like likely factors. a) https://www.networkplatforms.co.za/information/our-network https://www.networkplatforms.co.za/information/our-network

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
Since this got popular and I can't edit any more: 1) Cape Town is not the Southernmost point of Africa, but it is very far south, and does contain the Cape of Good Hope, the Southwestern-most point. There are no population centres that are further south (Port Elizabeth is about the same latitude) 2) "...the next area that needs it is Lagos" ... and other central African cities such as Kinshasa and Accra. It might make sense if the second African AWS region is located hereabouts. 3) "... to data centres in Europe" ... and Middle-East, of course.
pinkfoot 7y ago
> I have no inside knowledge as to AWS chose Cape Town. Well its public knowledge that Amazon has had a dev team in Cape Town for many years and they were part of the initial ECC efforts.

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago

Since this got popular and I can't edit any more: 1) Cape Town is not the Southernmost point of Africa, but it is very far south, and does contain the Cape of Good Hope, the Southwestern-most point. There are no population centres that are further south (Port Elizabeth is about the same latitude) 2) "...the next area that needs it is Lagos" ... and other central African cities such as Kinshasa and Accra. It might make sense if the second African AWS region is located hereabouts. 3) "... to data centres in Europe" ... and Middle-East, of course.

pinkfoot 7y ago

> I have no inside knowledge as to AWS chose Cape Town. Well its public knowledge that Amazon has had a dev team in Cape Town for many years and they were part of the initial ECC efforts.