AWS cloud expansion BETRAYS new Equinix data centers

Amazon has launched two edge locations for technology services within India, indicating that colocation giant Equinix may soon open facilities in the sub-continent.

The new locations in Chennai and Mumbai were announced by Amazon on Sunday, and take the company's worldwide roster of edge locations to 42. In the past, the rollout of these services has pre-figured Amazon slotting major IT assets into a region, as happened in Australia last year.

Equinix is Amazon's go-to partner for colocation facilities, and Amazon's Direct Connect service which lets companies establish a dedicated network connection between racks in a colo facility and the AWS cloud, is available mostly via Equinix facilities.

Though Equinix does not list any Indian locations on its website, the company had identified Chennai and Mumbai as two possible sites for expansion in 2011, and in July, 2012 the company told The Wall Street Journal it expected to "open or acquire data centers in markets such as India".

As in Australia before the announcement of a major AWS presence, Amazon is bringing its CloudFormation and Route 53 services to the mysterious Indian facilities.

Current users of CloudFront or Route 53 will find their applications will automatically use the new locations, where appropriate, the company said. CloudFront is Amazon's own content deliver service. Route53 is a DNS web service for AWS services like EC2, Load Balancers, CloudFront, or S3 storage buckets.

"Your users will enjoy fast, low-latency access to your static, dynamic, or streamed content regardless of their location," the company wrote in a blog post announcing the move. ®