During today’s AWS re:Invent event, Andy Jassy highlighted the increasing adoption of cloud technologies by businesses. However, the recent announcements concerning container services specifically acknowledged the continued importance of the data center with the introduction of ECS Anywhere and EKS Anywhere, both created to enable operation of these services both on-site and within cloud environments.

These two offerings, ECS for broad container management and EKS built around Kubernetes, will empower customers to utilize these well-known AWS services within their own facilities. Jassy explained that certain customers desire the identical tools they employ in the cloud to also be available on premises, and these services are designed to fulfill that need.

Regarding ECS, he noted, “Many of my containers still require operation on premises during this shift to the cloud, and those individuals want consistent management and deployment processes both on premises and within AWS. Customers have requested that we address this. Therefore, I’m pleased to introduce two new features: first, the launch of Amazon ECS Anywhere, which allows you to run ECS and your containers within your own data center,” he shared with the re:Invent attendees.

Additionally, the company announced the open-sourcing of EKS, its fully managed Kubernetes service. The motivation behind these initiatives is to provide customers with maximum flexibility, acknowledging the perspectives of Microsoft, IBM, and Google that we currently operate in a multi-cloud and hybrid environment, and a complete migration to the cloud is not happening immediately.

Indeed, Jassy indicated in his keynote that currently, in 2020, only 4% of global IT expenditure is allocated to the cloud. This signifies a potential market for selling services on premises, and these new services are intended to capitalize on that opportunity.