Ancestry Goes All-in on AWS

June 9, 2017 Off By David
Grazed from Ancestry and Amazon

Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced that Ancestry, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics, will migrate all of its applications and data to AWS. By choosing the cloud with the most functionality, including a wide range of analytics and machine learning capabilities, Ancestry will be able to achieve superior scalability, performance, reliability, security, and privacy as it continues its global growth.

For its over 2.6 million paid subscribers, Ancestry analyzes and compares billions of historical records, tens of millions of family trees, and millions of existing customer DNA profiles to deliver data-driven insights that help customers develop a new sense of self. The company requires a highly scalable and secure IT infrastructure on which to store and analyze large volumes of sensitive information. Ancestry’s goal is to empower people to take their own journey of self-discovery, providing actionable insights that have meaningful impact. It offers customers a deeper view into their ethnic backgrounds, hints about their family history, and connections to possible genetic cousins.

“We’re providing consumers with insights that can transform their lives. By enabling people to dive deeper into themselves and the lives of the people and cultures that led to them, we help customers change their perspective on who they are and how they fit into the world that surrounds them. Accomplishing that requires that we securely manage and analyze an incredible amount of unique, personal data on a daily basis,” said Nat Natarajan, Executive Vice President of Product and Technology at Ancestry. “With our continuing growth, migrating to the cloud provides us with clear scalability and security advantages. AWS also provides us with the flexibility we need to stay at the forefront of consumer genomics, as the science and technology in the space continue to rapidly evolve. We’re confident that AWS provides us with unmatched scalability, security, and privacy, and we’re excited to move our data and applications to AWS.”

“Ancestry is doing amazing work to reinvent how people discover themselves through a unique combination of historical records, family trees, and DNA,” said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS. “Because AWS offers much more functionality than any other infrastructure provider, Ancestry can easily move existing apps, develop any new app their builders dream up, and leverage AWS’s expansive analytics and machine learning offerings to understand their data better and infuse their applications with more intelligence. We look forward to working with Ancestry as it goes all-in on AWS over the next year.”

Ancestry joins the growing list of customers going all-in on AWS, including 3M Health Information Systems, AOL, Acquia, Atlassian, Australia Health District, Blackboard, Change Healthcare, Discovery Communications, Dole, City of McKinney Texas, Clark Construction, DigitalGlobe, Edmunds.com, Ellucian, Eliza Corporation, Enel, Fast Retailing, FINRA, GameStop, Hertz, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Kempinski, LexisNexis, Live Nation, Magazine Luiza, Matson, MetGlobal, Ministry of Justice UK, MPAC, Motorola, National Democratic Institute, Netflix, Nordstrom, Pristine, Qlik, Smiles, Sony New Media Solutions, Splunk, Suncorp Group, Talen Energy, The Guardian, Time Inc., Trainline, Twilio, University of Notre Dame, Vend, Vidyard, and Zillow.