Middle East and Africa Cloud Regions — Emerging Coverage
Compare Middle East and Africa cloud regions across AWS, Azure, and GCP. Coverage in Bahrain, UAE, Israel, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia.
Detailed Explanation
Middle East and Africa — Expanding Cloud Frontiers
The Middle East and Africa represent the newest frontiers for cloud provider expansion, with regions added primarily since 2019 to serve growing digital economies and data sovereignty requirements.
Middle East Regions
| Location | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bahrain | me-south-1 |
— | — |
| UAE (Dubai) | me-central-1 |
uaenorth |
— |
| Israel (Tel Aviv) | il-central-1 |
israelcentral |
me-west1 |
| Qatar | — | qatarcentral |
me-central1 |
| Saudi Arabia | — | — | me-central2 |
Africa Regions
| Location | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Africa (Cape Town) | af-south-1 |
southafricanorth |
— |
Key Characteristics
- Limited provider overlap: Unlike US or Europe, many Middle East and Africa locations are served by only one or two providers, making multi-cloud architecture more challenging.
- Newer regions: These regions tend to have fewer services available compared to mature regions in the US or Europe.
- Higher latency: From US East, latency to Middle East is typically 120-180ms, and to South Africa 200-300ms.
- Strategic importance: The UAE and Saudi Arabia regions serve the rapidly digitalizing Gulf economies, while Israel's tech hub benefits from local cloud access.
Data Sovereignty
Several Middle East countries have strict data sovereignty requirements:
- UAE: Data center regulations require government data to be hosted locally
- Saudi Arabia: Cloud computing regulations mandate local data hosting for certain sectors
- Bahrain: Financial services data often must remain in the Gulf region
Use Case
Evaluating cloud region options for a business expanding into the Middle East or Africa, where local data residency requirements or latency to local users are critical factors.
Try It — Cloud Region Comparison
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