Google’s First Local Cloud Region for Israel is Now Live

Last week, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, launched its local cloud region for Israel. This project had been in the works for about a year.

It is expected to give economic growth and employment a boost and also offer better data security to public entities and government ministries.

Nimbus project

The cloud region is part of the ‘Nimbus’ project of Israel worth $1.2 billion with Amazon’s AWS and Google.

Last year, the two technology giants had won government tenders for building and providing cloud-based data centers and services in the country.

Thanks to the project, the government ministries in Israel and other entities will be able to transfer services and servers into the cloud data centers that are locally available.

Before this, Israel had had to use cloud services that were provided by AWS and Google data centers in Holland, Ireland and Frankfurt.

Now, all the data in those centers will be transferred to ones in Israel and strict security guidelines will be used to keep it secure within the country’s borders and according to Israeli law.

Employees in Israel will be required to clear security clearances.

The benefits

On Thursday, the Finance Ministry said that the transition of the government to the new Google cloud region would help in improving the efficiency of government services.

It also added that this would cut down operating costs, reduce the response times for activating digital services for people and also give government offices access to advanced services.

The ministry added that the Israeli market would also be able to access advanced computing services via the project.

This would help local services with digital transformation, boost business productivity, improve analysis and processing of massive data of local companies and promote the ecosystem of the country in cloud technologies.

In a statement, the ministry also said that the project would involve investment in infrastructure worth billions of shekels.

Google’s statement

Google Cloud Israel’s country manager, Boaz Maoz said that the cloud region would assist local organizations in connecting with customers and users all over the world.

He also said that it would boost digital transformation and innovation throughout the economy and also contribute to the GDP in Israel by about $7.6 billion between 2022 and 2030.

Plus, it would also help in creating about 21,230 jobs in the same time period. A launch event will also be hosted by Google for the project in the beginning of next month.

Other details

The Finance Ministry also said that AWS’ cloud project would be activated in the first half of next year. The contract that the government signed with AWS and Google is for seven years and it can be extended for 23 years.

Israel will have the option of adding more suppliers after the first seven years, or halt services with existing ones.

An investment of about NIS 4 billion will be required for all six data centers that are planned in the project and each center will provide about 500 direct jobs.