• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Gen Z fled San Francisco for Texas and Florida. Now they’re turning ‘welcomer cities’ into the next big tech towns

2

Melinda French Gates' advice to new IPO millionaires: 'Give half your money away'

3

Anthropic disables Fable and Mythos AI models after U.S. government bars it from giving foreigners access

1

Gen Z fled San Francisco for Texas and Florida. Now they’re turning ‘welcomer cities’ into the next big tech towns

2

Melinda French Gates' advice to new IPO millionaires: 'Give half your money away'

3

Anthropic disables Fable and Mythos AI models after U.S. government bars it from giving foreigners access
TechPointCloud

Salesforce’s Core Software Is Coming to Amazon’s Cloud Soon

Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
December 2, 2016, 7:50 AM ET
Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris.
Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris.

Salesforce’s bread-and-butter software products, used by sales, marketing, and service people at Fortune 500 companies, will be available from Amazon’s public cloud for the first time in a few months.

Until now, this collection of software services has been available from Salesforce’s own data centers, but that will change starting in mid 2017 when Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Community Cloud, and Analytics Cloud will also be available from Amazon (AMZN) in Canada. Other countries will follow.

The news comes six months after Salesforce announced plans to build new products on AWS and to offer some of its older software on Amazon’s infrastructure as well. Less public was the fact that Salesforce (CRM) committed to buying $400 million worth of AWS infrastructure over the next four years to make that happen. It was a big PR coup for AWS, which is fending off challenges from Microsoft (MSFT) and other rivals that are wooing big software companies to use their rival clouds.

A public cloud is a massive set of shared servers, storage, and networking gear that is run by one company—Amazon, Microsoft, or Google (GOOGL), for example—and rented out to many customers.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

Moving onto Amazon’s cloud was no simple task, Parker Harris, Salesforce co-founder, told Fortune.

For one thing Salesforce (CRM) depends on Oracle (ORCL) databases running on what techies call “bare metal” servers. To put those databases on Amazon’s virtualized servers required significant work. Virtualization is a software layer that runs on servers to enable more workloads to share the same hardware.

By doing that re-engineering, Harris said Salesforce’s core software is no longer married to the company’s traditional data center infrastructure so, in theory, Salesforce could move all of its software to the public cloud. He added that there are no plans to do so, however.

For more on Salesforce, watch:

Starting next year, customers in Canada can opt to run their sales, or customer relationship management, software on either set of data centers. There will be no price difference, Harris said.

In making this move, Salesforce can take advantage of Amazon data centers around the world, and avoid building more of its own. Amazon has giant data center farms in 14 regions worldwide, with four more slated to come online soon, including one in Montreal.

Newer Salesforce products, including its IoT or Internet of things cloud, were developed to run on AWS right out of the box. The fact that Salesforce opted to take what was its legacy code and repurpose it for a new infrastructure set is worth noting.

Other areas of AWS-Salesforce collaboration include enabling Salesforce Heroku, a popular software development tool set to run on Amazon’s Virtual Private Cloud. VPC lets customers cordon off a section of Amazon’s computing power for their own use. The companies are also working to bridge Salesforce’s Internet of things product, (IoT Cloud), which already runs on AWS infrastructure, and Amazon’s Redshift data warehouse. And, a new set of tools will help developers incorporate the voice recognition of Amazon’s popular Alexa personal assistant into Salesforce software.

The news comes just as the annual AWS re:Invent tech conference in Las Vegas comes to a close.

About the Author
Barb Darrow
By Barb Darrow
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

SpaceX went from three consecutive rocket explosions and near-bankruptcy in 2008 to the biggest IPO in history
Startups & VentureSpaceX
SpaceX went from three consecutive rocket explosions and near-bankruptcy in 2008 to the biggest IPO in history
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJune 14, 2026
3 hours ago
A 1% mistake costs $10 billion: Inside the impossible math of managing Elon Musk’s trillionaire SpaceX wealth
Personal FinanceElon Musk
A 1% mistake costs $10 billion: Inside the impossible math of managing Elon Musk’s trillionaire SpaceX wealth
By Sydney LakeJune 14, 2026
4 hours ago
Whop CEO Steven Schwartz
SuccessMillionaires
The Gen Z cofounder of $1.6 billion Whop says his platform has minted over 650 millionaires—he wants to make work fun and money worries obsolete
By Emma BurleighJune 14, 2026
5 hours ago
nexstar
CommentaryAntitrust
Nexstar CEO: big tech swallowed local newspapers. Local TV could be next
By Perry A. SookJune 14, 2026
6 hours ago
The hottest debate on Wall Street right now: Does the flood of mega-IPOs and new shares signal a downturn ahead? That depends
InvestingIPOs
The hottest debate on Wall Street right now: Does the flood of mega-IPOs and new shares signal a downturn ahead? That depends
By Jason MaJune 13, 2026
16 hours ago
You can ignore AI giants like SpaceX, but your 401(k) won’t
Investingindex funds
You can ignore AI giants like SpaceX, but your 401(k) won’t
By Stan Choe and The Associated PressJune 13, 2026
18 hours ago

Most Popular

Gen Z fled San Francisco for Texas and Florida. Now they’re turning ‘welcomer cities’ into the next big tech towns
Real Estate
Gen Z fled San Francisco for Texas and Florida. Now they’re turning ‘welcomer cities’ into the next big tech towns
By Sydney LakeJune 13, 2026
1 day ago
Melinda French Gates' advice to new IPO millionaires: 'Give half your money away'
Startups & Venture
Melinda French Gates' advice to new IPO millionaires: 'Give half your money away'
By Emma HinchliffeJune 13, 2026
1 day ago
Anthropic disables Fable and Mythos AI models after U.S. government bars it from giving foreigners access
AI
Anthropic disables Fable and Mythos AI models after U.S. government bars it from giving foreigners access
By Jeremy KahnJune 13, 2026
1 day ago
SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen quietly engineered its historic IPO and became an overnight billionaire
C-Suite
SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen quietly engineered its historic IPO and became an overnight billionaire
By Sasha RogelbergJune 13, 2026
1 day ago
Trump expects to sign a deal with Iran on Sunday, but Tehran may want to avoid giving him a gift on his birthday
Middle East
Trump expects to sign a deal with Iran on Sunday, but Tehran may want to avoid giving him a gift on his birthday
By Jason MaJune 13, 2026
19 hours ago
'It's not a jailbreak' — Research leading to U.S. export restrictions on top Anthropic models was for defense, cybersecurity CEO says
AI
'It's not a jailbreak' — Research leading to U.S. export restrictions on top Anthropic models was for defense, cybersecurity CEO says
By Jason MaJune 13, 2026
22 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.