AWS Business Lunch and Cloud Adoption in Kazakh Banks

Colleagues from AWS invited me to a business lunch. And that’s when the flashbacks hit.

The Load Balancer Story

The first time I spun up infrastructure in the cloud, I forgot to shut down a load balancer after the lab. Thankfully, at the time I was just a regular engineer, and the attempt to charge $1,000 to my card came as quite a surprise. First, I’d never had that kind of money on the card. Second - WTF. It ended well though - AWS support saved the day.

Cloud and Kazakhstan’s Banks

Here’s what’s interesting: just two years ago, major players in the banking sector avoided the cloud like the plague, terrified of NBRK regulations.

So where do things stand now?

• Have solid local or regional cloud providers emerged?
• Has the infrastructure matured - direct connect, hybrid solutions?
• Does the financial sector actually trust the cloud?

The market has shifted. The regulator has become more open, local availability zones have appeared, hybrid solutions are actually working. But the road from “it’s allowed” to “everyone’s doing it” is still a long one.