Videoconferencing service Zoom has signed a multi-year agreement making Amazon Web Services its preferred cloud provider. The deal extends a long-standing agreement with AWS.

Zoom has used AWS since 2011, according to the press release, and has ramped up its capacity since the Covid-19 pandemic turned it into a business essential. The company does still use Oracle's cloud, but this week's announcement makes it clear that AWS is its main partner.

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When demand for Zoom exploded in March, an Oracle press release claimed that the service used Oracle for its cloud infrastructure, but a hasty announcement by Amazon said the majority of Zoom ran on AWS. In June, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan confirmed that AWS provided the majority of the new servers required by Zoom's brisk 30-fold growth in the pandemic. The company also rents space in data centers.

This week Zoom officially made AWS its preferred cloud provider. However, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed to TechRadar that Zoom does still use some Oracle cloud capacity.

AWS provides a "seamless, secure extension of [Zoom's] data centers," according to the release which goes on to say that, as well as providing for future growth of Zoom, AWS and Zoom have further plans, including integrating the service with other Amazon devices and capabilities to support hybrid offices and remote work. This will apparently include integrating Zoom into the Amazon Alexa Echo Show smart display, and including Alexa features like voice control in the Zoom Rooms business conferencing service.

“Faced with unprecedented global demand this past year, we’ve been able to handle it in significant part by running the substantial majority of our cloud-based workloads on our preferred cloud provider, AWS, and relying on AWS’s performance and scalability,” said Yuan.

“When organizations build on AWS - as Zoom has done since 2011 0- they transform their business, expanding and innovating much faster,” said Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS.