5 ms·

I've always wondered why Amazon put their first EU DC in Ireland, so far away from everything. While Germany is great and all, somewhere more central like Amste

by notax 12y ago

I've always wondered why Amazon put their first EU DC in Ireland, so far away from everything. While Germany is great and all, somewhere more central like Amsterdam would have looked like the obvious choice. Whatever the location, it's still terribly expensive. Just looking at the Internet traffic charges makes my wallet hurt. I could not affort to serve traffic at any volume from AWS. Luckily there are a lot of other options in Germany.

nhaehnle 12y ago
Frankfurt is home to DE-CIX, which is one of the largest traffic exchanges in the world - i.e. it's pretty central.
- notax 12y ago
  Yes, DE-CIX is the second largest IXP, and it's an obvious SECOND choice. What's not obvious is why Ireland was Amazon's first choice and not Amsterdam which is the premier location with AMS-IX. In other words I was referring to Amazon's odd first choice in my first message. Sorry if that was unclear. Logical locations for first batch of EU DCs: Amsterdam, Frankfurt. Odd locations: Dublin, Frankfurt. Even starting with London and LINX would have made far more sense than Dublin. Choosing Dublin as your first DC, is like putting your first US DC in some place like North Dakota.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - jgreen10 12y ago
    Nowadays DE-CIX is slightly bigger than AMS-IX.
    - erik_sub 12y ago
      They are fairly equal. According to self-published statistics AMS-IX is nominally bigger in peak traffic and number of members. Sources: https://ams-ix.net/ https://ams-ix.net/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/
    - notax 12y ago
      erik_sub, also this comment was invisible due to hellbanning. erik_sub 19 hours ago | link [dead] They are fairly equal. According to self-published statistics AMS-IX is nominally bigger in peak traffic and number of members. Sources: https://ams-ix.net/ https://ams-ix.net/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/
  - donavanm 12y ago
    It depends on who youre serving. Ams is nice for western eu traffic. Fra is certainly well connected to the continent also. Additionally fra has much better connectivity to the periphery of europe, including mid east and north africa. Additionally dub already covers the uk, where ams would cut 10ms from your fra times. So if youve already got dub and you want to cover more of the map fra makes a lot of sense.
    - notax 12y ago
      > So if youve already got dub and you want to cover more of the map fra makes a lot of sense. Aye and there-in lies the rub. Frankfurt is a fine second choice and even an excellent first choice. But of all the excellent choices available, why does dubious Dublin have the honor of first choice in AWS EU locations? It just does not make any sense. Not only it is bad for Amazon, it's very detrimential to AWS users. Given a choice between Dublin and any other major IX location in Europe, I doubt anybody would have chosen Dublin. AWS users just put up with it since they had no choice.
_asciiker_ 12y ago
A couple of years ago, traffic cost was still high compared to the US, but nowadays it's only a bit more. I have many servers in Germany and I am able to offer 4 TB / month per VM at no extra cost.
- notax 12y ago
  In my experience Germany is far cheaper in traffic costs than the US.
molf 12y ago
Ireland was probably chosen because of low corporate tax rates. This might have been more important when the first location was chosen than it is now, and latencies in Europe are mostly pretty minimal anyway.
- erik_sub 12y ago
  > Ireland was probably chosen because of low corporate tax rates. Perhaps you are right. It just sounds incredibly short sighted if true. That's like, to use notax's example location, locating your startup in North Dakota because the rent is cheap over there. Amsterdam would have been a much better location with better and cheaper bandwidth from a much larger selection of providers. In addition to better infrastructure, Amsterdam has a wider and deeper talent pool for datacenter talent. I also have a hard time really buying the tax argument as Facebook and Google have European datacenters outside Ireland and they seem to manage their Irish tax strategy just fine. Even Apple is reportedly eyeing a datacenter in the Netherlands and I doubt they would consider one if it messed with their Irish sandwitch. > This might have been more important when the first location was chosen than it is now, and latencies in Europe are mostly pretty minimal anyway. From experience I can tell you that there is plenty of latency to go around in Europe. Part of that is Amazon's dubious choice of location and part of it is their network. Cloudping easily gives you latencies comparable to east coast - west coast ping times when testing from various European location to AWS Ireland. Unlike popular entertainment would have you believe, Europe in not a country and neither is it the size of a postage stamp. You'd also be advised to consider that previously Ireland was Amazon's closest location to Russia and that in itself is a pretty big country. Amusingly enough Amazon's Irish location is almost exactly like putting your datacenter in North Dakota as notax quipped. Just look at this map: http://www.powercycle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/FireShot-Screen-Capture-006-Europe-and-US-Country-Size-Comparison-Map-How-Big-is-Europe-Compared-to-the-US_-goeurope_about_com_od_europeanmaps_l_bl-country-size-comparison-map_htm.jpg http://www.powercycle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/FireSho...
- secfirstmd 12y ago
  Also, highly skilled English speaking work force. A huge amount of other US firms based in the area.

by notax 12y ago

nhaehnle 12y ago

Frankfurt is home to DE-CIX, which is one of the largest traffic exchanges in the world - i.e. it's pretty central.

notax 12y ago
Yes, DE-CIX is the second largest IXP, and it's an obvious SECOND choice. What's not obvious is why Ireland was Amazon's first choice and not Amsterdam which is the premier location with AMS-IX. In other words I was referring to Amazon's odd first choice in my first message. Sorry if that was unclear. Logical locations for first batch of EU DCs: Amsterdam, Frankfurt. Odd locations: Dublin, Frankfurt. Even starting with London and LINX would have made far more sense than Dublin. Choosing Dublin as your first DC, is like putting your first US DC in some place like North Dakota.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jgreen10 12y ago
  Nowadays DE-CIX is slightly bigger than AMS-IX.
  - erik_sub 12y ago
    They are fairly equal. According to self-published statistics AMS-IX is nominally bigger in peak traffic and number of members. Sources: https://ams-ix.net/ https://ams-ix.net/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/
  - notax 12y ago
    erik_sub, also this comment was invisible due to hellbanning. erik_sub 19 hours ago | link [dead] They are fairly equal. According to self-published statistics AMS-IX is nominally bigger in peak traffic and number of members. Sources: https://ams-ix.net/ https://ams-ix.net/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/ https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/
- donavanm 12y ago
  It depends on who youre serving. Ams is nice for western eu traffic. Fra is certainly well connected to the continent also. Additionally fra has much better connectivity to the periphery of europe, including mid east and north africa. Additionally dub already covers the uk, where ams would cut 10ms from your fra times. So if youve already got dub and you want to cover more of the map fra makes a lot of sense.
  - notax 12y ago
    > So if youve already got dub and you want to cover more of the map fra makes a lot of sense. Aye and there-in lies the rub. Frankfurt is a fine second choice and even an excellent first choice. But of all the excellent choices available, why does dubious Dublin have the honor of first choice in AWS EU locations? It just does not make any sense. Not only it is bad for Amazon, it's very detrimential to AWS users. Given a choice between Dublin and any other major IX location in Europe, I doubt anybody would have chosen Dublin. AWS users just put up with it since they had no choice.

_asciiker_ 12y ago

A couple of years ago, traffic cost was still high compared to the US, but nowadays it's only a bit more. I have many servers in Germany and I am able to offer 4 TB / month per VM at no extra cost.

notax 12y ago
In my experience Germany is far cheaper in traffic costs than the US.

molf 12y ago

Ireland was probably chosen because of low corporate tax rates. This might have been more important when the first location was chosen than it is now, and latencies in Europe are mostly pretty minimal anyway.

erik_sub 12y ago
> Ireland was probably chosen because of low corporate tax rates. Perhaps you are right. It just sounds incredibly short sighted if true. That's like, to use notax's example location, locating your startup in North Dakota because the rent is cheap over there. Amsterdam would have been a much better location with better and cheaper bandwidth from a much larger selection of providers. In addition to better infrastructure, Amsterdam has a wider and deeper talent pool for datacenter talent. I also have a hard time really buying the tax argument as Facebook and Google have European datacenters outside Ireland and they seem to manage their Irish tax strategy just fine. Even Apple is reportedly eyeing a datacenter in the Netherlands and I doubt they would consider one if it messed with their Irish sandwitch. > This might have been more important when the first location was chosen than it is now, and latencies in Europe are mostly pretty minimal anyway. From experience I can tell you that there is plenty of latency to go around in Europe. Part of that is Amazon's dubious choice of location and part of it is their network. Cloudping easily gives you latencies comparable to east coast - west coast ping times when testing from various European location to AWS Ireland. Unlike popular entertainment would have you believe, Europe in not a country and neither is it the size of a postage stamp. You'd also be advised to consider that previously Ireland was Amazon's closest location to Russia and that in itself is a pretty big country. Amusingly enough Amazon's Irish location is almost exactly like putting your datacenter in North Dakota as notax quipped. Just look at this map: http://www.powercycle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/FireShot-Screen-Capture-006-Europe-and-US-Country-Size-Comparison-Map-How-Big-is-Europe-Compared-to-the-US_-goeurope_about_com_od_europeanmaps_l_bl-country-size-comparison-map_htm.jpg http://www.powercycle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/FireSho...
secfirstmd 12y ago
Also, highly skilled English speaking work force. A huge amount of other US firms based in the area.