Salesforce to Use AWS and Own Data Centers in Expansion Push

Salesforce has officially named Amazon Web Services its preferred public cloud infrastructure provider, the two companies announced Wednesday. The San Francisco-based cloud software provider is planning an international expansion, and the deal with AWS is part of the infrastructure strategy for that expansion.

The announcement follows a report by the Wall Street Journal earlier this month that Salesforce was using AWS for infrastructure that underpins its new Internet of Things service, but there hasn't been an official acknowledgement from either company until now.

Salesforce's other services, including Marketing Cloud Social Studio, Heroku, and SalesforceIQ, also run on AWS, according to the announcement, and it is now planning to extend its use of Amazon's cloud to its core services, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, App Cloud, Community Cloud, and Analytics Cloud, among others.

Salesforce has traditionally used colocation data centers to host infrastructure that supports its flagship cloud CRM services. The San Francisco-based company said it would now use AWS to bring new infrastructure online in some international markets more quickly and efficiently, but it will use the public cloud in combination with its own data centers.

Last year, for example, Salesforce signed a lease for 2MW of data center capacity in the Chicago metro with DuPont Fabros Technology, according to a report by the commercial real estate firm North American Data Centers.

The company said it would announce locations and timing for the expansion later this year.

The cloud software company has been rethinking its infrastructure strategy since at least last year, when its VP of hardware engineering, TJ Kniveton, said it was going to switch to a web-scale infrastructure strategy, used by the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, as well as Amazon. Using AWS is one way to take advantage of web-scale infrastructure and one that doesn't require actually having to build it.