Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MTCIT) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with American eCommerce giant Amazon’s cloud unit Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch a local zone for cloud services and local data processing in the Sultanate.
Under the MoU, Oman is the first country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to host AWS Local Zone after its launch in the US and other cities in the world.
“AWS Local Zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that place AWS computing, storage, database, and other services near major centers of population, industry, and information technology (IT), allowing them to deploy applications that require latency in the single digits of a millisecond to end users or on-premises data centers,” according to the statement.
With the signing of the MoU, the MTCIT aims to attract investment prospects in data centers and cloud services, support digital transformation and contribute to the growth of the digital economy in the country.
Eng. Said bin Hamoud Al Ma’awali, Oman’s Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, said that, “This qualifies Oman to be a regional hub for data centers and cloud services, as well as a link between Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.”
The minister affirmed that the ministry seeks to cooperate further with Amazon Web Services to attract foreign investment in the ICT sector, notably in hosting and processing information and cloud services.
Further, Eng. Al Ma’awali pointed out that this cooperation will enhance the achievement of the National Program for the Digital Economy. Amazon Web Services is one of the largest global companies that are specialized in cloud hosting services.
Further, AWS signed an MoU with Omantel in order to enhance the latter’s efforts to provide innovative solutions to its subscribers.
