AWS puts Nigeria on Edge

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the launch of the first Amazon CloudFront edge computing location in Lagos, Nigeria.

The facility provides secure, reliable, high-performing connectivity to the rest of the AWS global network and support for AWS edge services, including Amazon CloudFront, AWS Shield, and AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF).

AWS says it’s customers in Nigeria can expect up to 30% improvement in latency for data delivered through the new edge location to give end users faster, more responsive applications.

AWS has the largest global infrastructure footprint of all cloud providers. With the launch of the CloudFront edge location, Nigeria is now connected to the AWS global infrastructure network of more than 450 points of presence (POPs) and 13 regional edge caches in more than 90 cities across 50 countries. 

These are designed and built to deliver secure, reliable, and scalable cloud computing environment with high quality network performance.

The new AWS edge location brings the full suite of benefits provided by Amazon CloudFront, a highly secure content delivery network (CDN) that accelerates the delivery of data, video, applications, and application programming interfaces (APIs) to users worldwide. By caching content at the Nigeria edge location, local Amazon CloudFront customers can benefit from improved performance, network security, and application-level protection.

Amazon CloudFront improves security with traffic encryption and access controls. All Amazon CloudFront edge locations are protected against infrastructure-level distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) threats that use an always-on network flow monitoring and in-line mitigation service that minimises application latency and downtime when used with AWS Shield.

Customers can create security rules to protect applications against common web exploits and bot attacks by enabling AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF). Amazon CloudFront integrates with AWS services, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) as origins for applications. There is also support for serverless code to be run close to end users for customization with Lambda@Edge.

“Our existing customers, from startups to established commercial and public sector organisations, will benefit from faster content delivery and enhanced security,” says Amrote Abdella, general manager of AWS Sub-Saharan Africa. 

“Companies looking to modernise their operations will find an easier on-ramp to the cloud through the new Amazon CloudFront edge location. Recognising Nigeria’s role as a leading technology hub in Africa, we continue to invest in the country to meet our customers’ growing needs and help them accelerate their digital transformations.”

The launch of local AWS infrastructure in Nigeria will help organisations in various industries, including education, media and entertainment, healthcare, financial services, and e-commerce, innovate faster.

 As an example, IbakaTV is a Nigerian video-on-demand platform for Nollywood movies, with over 15,000 hours of movie and TV content available for streaming.

“IbakaTV’s mission is to make quality Nollywood content accessible to viewers wherever they may be, on whichever platform they chose to view it,” says Idornigie Blessed, CEO of Ibaka Entertainment. “We look forward to AWS extending its global network footprint into Nigeria with the new Amazon CloudFront edge location, which we expect will help us enable an enhanced entertainment experience for millions of our customers in the region.”

The new Amazon CloudFront edge location is the latest in AWS’s ongoing investments in Africa. In 2004, AWS launched a Development Center in Cape Town focused on pioneering networking technologies, next-generation software for customer support, and Amazon EC2, which was originally built there. 

Since 2015, AWS has opened offices in Johannesburg and Nigeria (2022). In 2017, AWS Direct Connect, a cloud service solution that makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from on-premises to AWS, expanded to Africa with locations in Cape Town and Johannesburg. In 2018, Amazon CloudFront edge locations launched in Johannesburg and Cape Town, followed by an edge location in Nairobi, Kenya (2020).

The AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region launched in 2020 with three Availability Zones. In January 2023, the first AWS Local Zones location launched in Lagos, helping deliver distributed edge and hybrid cloud applications that require single-digit millisecond latency to end users in Nigeria.* For more information on AWS’s global infrastructure, visit https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/.