Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of a new disaster recovery program, AWS Project Resilience in Australia and New Zealand. The new program offers eligible local government, education, and small and medium community organisations up to US$ 5,000 in AWS credits, to support organisations, such as those on the front lines including police, fire, and emergency responders, that play a critical role in ensuring their community’s resilience, by helping them develop and manage the technology-based aspects of disaster preparedness.
Australia and New Zealand are prone to extraordinary natural disasters, from devastating droughts and bushfires to volcanic eruptions and once-in-a-hundred-year floods. These events have touched all corners of society and tested the resilience of even the hardiest communities.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) believes it’s vital that we work alongside our customers and partners to help people respond to crises and to develop solutions that will help reduce the impact of disasters. AWS aims to help state and local governments, community organisations, and educational institutions better prepare for natural and man-made disasters by reducing the impact these might have on their critical IT systems, keeping data safely backed-up and secure, and readily accessible when needed.
That’s why AWS Project Resilience is now available to Australian and New Zealand communities, customers, and partners. Part of the global AWS disaster recovery program, AWS Project Resilience supports organisations, such as those on the front lines including police, fire, and emergency responders.
One of the most critical tasks during a disaster is to ensure that data regarding people, assets, and services remain safe and accessible, even when it is under threat. Data can play a vital role in coordinating relief efforts, especially when it relates to the locations of people in danger, or to assets that might be used in disaster response. For example, data can be used to model the progress of fire fronts and predict the location of hotspots, or to model the impact of a flooding river.
Project Resilience offers eligible local government, education, and small and medium community organisations up to USD$5,000 in AWS credits, which can be used to offset the cost of storing their data safely and securely on AWS. This means that even if computing equipment, such as laptops and servers, are damaged in a disaster, their critical data is still securely stored in the AWS Cloud, and can be easily accessed by them at any time.
It’s vital that this data remains safe, as it is often during times of crisis when it’s most needed. AWS can help organisations avoid data loss due to damaged equipment, support spikes in traffic to their websites and calls to their contact centres leading up to and during events, and analyse data to improve early warning systems and damage assessments.
Eligible existing AWS customers can also submit a request to offset costs incurred when using the CloudEndure disaster recovery service, which enables them to cost-effectively back up their software applications into the AWS cloud. This helps organisations to get going again quickly using new computing equipment if their old devices have been damaged. And they can use this funding to cover the costs of using their existing backup service provider.
