Amazon launched a new cloud service

Amazon announced new offerings for Amazon Web Services cloud hosting users. First, users now have access to a Virtual Private Cloud system worldwide. Second, new dedicated networking services and new identity management offerings for corporate users have been introduced.

According to Adam Selipsky, vice president of Amazon Web Services, the bulk of the updates were designed for customers who value enhanced security, network management, and identity services designed for enterprise management systems. "All three new services are focused on network identity. We see continued growth in demand for cloud services among enterprises and continue to add new features in this area," he says.

Announced back in 2009, the VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) service has significantly expanded its coverage, now supporting all geographic regions. This capability is crucial for distributed companies with offices scattered around the world, as they now have the ability to create private clouds. The service allows you to create private clouds in selected network ranges, assign subnets, configure routing tables, and connect to the cloud via VPN channels.

Another new service, AWS Direct Connect, enables data delivery to AWS using virtual networks, bypassing the unsecured internet. Enterprises can also manage bandwidth and limit traffic to save costs. This service, like others, uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, meaning you pay only for the data transferred and the port leased. Unfortunately, Direct Connect is currently only available in Amazon's Virginia data center. It is expected that this technology will be available in other Amazon data centers within a few months.

The third new feature is the expanded functionality of the AWS Identity and Access Management service. This allows corporate users of the service to use specific corporate security settings when accessing AWS resources. This service is called a "consolidated identity store."