Privacy comes first at Amazon data centres
By Maurice Garvey
DON’T expect to catch a glimpse inside the massive Amazon data centre on Belgard Road anytime soon – or at any of the four data facilities in Tallaght for the matter.
The global tech giants are highly protective of customer privacy, so much so, that they don’t particularly like advertising the location of their data centres, and the majority of their 2,500 staff employed in outlying centres in Ireland, will never see the inside of one.
Mike Beary, Amazon Web Services country manager Ireland
“There are layers of security in place,” explains Mike Beary, Amazon Web Services country manager Ireland.
AWS data centres boast an array of leading technology cloud services, which make it attractive for organisations who want to move faster, lower their IT costs, and scale applications.
In May, Ryanair announced it was moving its full infrastructure to AWS.
The airline was already running several core production workloads on AWS, such as Ryanair Rooms and Ryanair.com, and is the latest business to find the huge computer power of AWS a benefit for their 130 million customers.
Mr Beary continued: “We offer businesses a pay-as-you-go, and with our computer power we can do this on a huge scale and offer significant savings. On a global scale, we are constantly upgrading. You have to have the most sophisticated technology for customers.”
The pay-as-you-go model allows companies to cope with spikes in demand for their products and services, and subsequent dips that may follow.
Last month, 1,000 new Irish jobs were announced by Amazon.
It is difficult to place an exact figure on how many of those jobs will be in Tallaght, due to the organic nature of the tech industry, but estimates are that a data centre at any one time hosts up to 30 employees.
“There will be engineers, electricians, network engineers and security at the centres, but often you have people moving from one to the other,” said Beary.
Although Amazon have been in Ireland since 2004, and in Tallaght since 2011, the company admit they have kept a relatively low profile in the community – something they wish to change.
“We have been a bit under the radar in Ireland, but now that we have established a footprint, we want to be better neighbours,” said Beary during an interview at The Echo this week.
He cited their support of the recent Tallafest and Tech Week, which saw schoolchildren bussed into their Irish headquarters on Burlington Road to learn about the tech industry from employees.
AWS have also teamed up with IT Tallaght to run a bursary programme for students, which will start in September.
The first draft of a recent Indecon report, commissioned by Amazon, found it’s investment in the South Dublin County area since 2011 has had a cumulative economic impact for the Irish economy in excess of €1.25 billon – on average supporting over 1,200 full-time jobs each year.
Having one of the most successful companies in the world based in the county has also been beneficial during leaner times.
Mr Beary continued: “We were building in a counter-cyclical way when nothing was really happening. We are now at a point where there is a lot going on, which is great to see. The construction industry is coming back. We were heavily involved in the building industry during the recession.”
A criticism that data centres have faced in the past is that they use a lot of energy, but Beary says this is quite the opposite for energy efficiency “centres of excellence”.
Indeed, Amazon is seeking permission to build a second huge data centre at the former Jacob’s site, and are working with South Dublin County Council, to enable the local authority to use excess waste heat from the facility.
“It does work,” says Beary, referencing Amazon’s corporate headquarters in Seattle successfully capturing waste heat from the neighbouring Westin Building Exchange.
“Across the road from the Seattle HQ there was a high-rise data centre, and we constructed a system to use waste heat for heating and air conditioning.
“Anything we can do with our community partners in capturing efficiency, we want to be part of at a micro-level. Data centres are more efficient than computers.
“The way the cloud works, we have that capacity working at a steady state, rather than peaks and valleys. Having that capacity close by is a huge advantage for the Irish economy.”
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