Since the beginning, Apple has designed iCloud to use any cloud service to store data. For security, all files are encrypted before being sent to third-party hosts, but the firm has been using AWS services for years, as well as competitors. In the past, Microsoft's Azure has been exploited for iCloud, more recently Google is used in conjunction with Amazon's servers
Apple builds its own data centers with the aim of reducing its dependence on third-party providers and therefore its rating. But knowing there are more than a billion iCloud accounts, and each account has at least 5 GB of online storage, that's millions of terabytes to store. And then it's not just about buying the right number of hard drives for a California data center, you have to distribute that content around the world at a good pace.
With 61 "Availability Zones" (equivalent to a data center) around the world, Amazon remains a partner of choice for this task. Even though Apple is completing its data centers under construction, especially in Europe1, AWS gives it the ability to reach customers around the world with unparalleled performance in its own server network.
This is an expense that increases logically as the number of iCloud users increases: 10% more than last year, according to the site. With this bill of more than $ 30 million, Apple would be in any case one of the largest AWS customer according to CNBC, even if the sum is only a tiny part of the revenue of this branch for Amazon.
