Amazon Web Services has expanded its Australian service locations for Amazon CloudFront and AWS Direct Connect.

It has announced a new Amazon CloudFront edge location in Melbourne, Australia.

52 AWS edge locations are now available worldwide, including one in Sydney.

Amazon describes CloudFront as a content delivery web service that offers both businesses and developers an "easy way to distribute content with low latency and high data transfer speeds."

The company also announced a second AWS Direct Connect location at Global Switch Data Centre in Sydney, to provide customers with a choice in Internet providers for utilising Jeff Bezos' AWS Cloud.

AWS Direct Connect allows for customers to establish a dedicated and private network connection from their ata centre, office, or colocation environment to AWS. Amazon said in many cases, using AWS Direct Connect can reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.

“Since it launched in November 2012, the AWS Sydney Region has been one of the fastest-growing AWS Regions. For the tens of thousands of customers across Australia and New Zealand who are using AWS to build business-critical solutions, develop new applications quickly, and scale enterprise environments, these new services offer greater choice and enhanced performance,” said Ed Lenta, Director, Amazon Australia.

“Edge content caching services such as Amazon CloudFront, help AWS customers connect with their end users. The announcement of a second Amazon CloudFront location in Melbourne means that AWS customers can deploy workloads close to where their end users are today and can increase their physical presence rapidly to win new users,” Lenta continued.

“AWS Direct Connect is an important addition to the range of cloud services available to customers within Global Switch, Sydney,” said Damon Reid, Managing Director, Global Switch Sydney.

“Our world class Sydney campus in Ultimo, provides an exceptional platform for service providers and end users on which to build their business. Global Switch data centres are carrier and cloud neutral and have been developed into modern hubs for digital services. AWS Direct Connect provides further options for customers seeking to implement cloud solutions.

"Whether a wholesale customer, a large enterprise or a start-up experiencing significant growth, they can all benefit from leveraging the AWS Direct Connect capabilities offered by Global Switch.”

The AWS Direct Connect expansion means Amazon is joining fellow data centre operator Equinix, who has also recently expanded its Sydney operations.