Amazon is swetting up a center in London designed to help startups set up their business on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud. 

The so-called “Pop-up Loft” in will be a place for startups to work on getting their apps running on AWS. Running from September 10 to October 29, close to the East End where many tech startups (and DatacenterDynamics) are located, it will be the first such space outside the US, where Amazon runs two Pop-up Lofts in New York and San Francisco. Others supporting the loft include Intel and DevOps automation firm Chef.

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Another pop-up loft in Shoreditch – Oxyman / Wikimedia

Entrepreneur-friendly

“The UK is a hotbed of innovation and London is one of the main places where we see talented, ambitious entrepreneurs coming together to test ideas and start new businesses that leverage cloud computing,” said a statement from Amazon technology chief Werner Vogels. 

AWS made $5bn revenue in the last financial year, and dominates the public cloud space, but it has historically been offeredd as a do-it-yourself cloud platform with little support on offer.

One response to that has been the growth of AWS partners offering implementation and support. Public cloud provider Rackspace last week announced it would offer its own AWS support services, apparently accepting that its own managed cloud is growing slowly in comparison with the dominance of AWS. 

Amazon’s loft will host meetups with support staff, training courses and bootcamps. Another loft is due to follow in Berlin.

The AWS office will cater to the startups which cluster in the “Tech City” area of London around Old Street and Shoreditch. The words ”pop-up” and “loft” will ensure it blends in, as the area is zoned for hipsters. 

Data center providers have suggested that AWS is not for everyone: ”AWS [has] a scale platform that transforms IT economics,” said Andy Roughan, director at IO. “Start-ups do not have legacy IT complications to concern themselves with and public cloud gives them a great opportunity to scale without significant investment.”

But start-ups with technology as their core competence may want to keep their options open, said Roughan, arguing they should ”consider the build or buy benefit case at every stage of their journey. They should also consider the benefit case of private cloud and colocation in making this decision. Public cloud is a sourcing decision and should not be confused as an IT strategy.” 

Update: DevOps specialist Chef got in touch with some more details than Amazon provided. The actual address is in Fore Street, EC2 (a little South of Tech City), the launch party will be on 10 September, and there will be training in DevOps from Chef.