FB to move WhatsApp data from IBM Cloud to its own data centres

Facebook has decided to move the massive WhatsApp data from IBM Cloud to its own data centres. According to a report in CNBC, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has been one of IBM’s top five public cloud customers in terms of revenue and was at one point spending $2 million a month with IBM.  The move signifies Facebook’s greater growing control over WhatsApp. WhatsApp is the world’s leading instant messaging app, with over 1.2 billion users.

“WhatsApp has been a great client of IBM Cloud as they used our global footprint and capabilities to scale their business,” IBM was quoted as saying. “We are proud of the role of IBM Cloud in their success. It is completely natural for Facebook to seek synergies across their business,” the tech giant added.

According to Synergy Research, IBM’s public cloud business lags behind Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is on top with 33 per cent of the market in April, as well as Microsoft’s Azure cloud. Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 and left the app running on the servers it has always used.

When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, it was already in the process of migrating its Instagram photo-sharing app which it acquired in 2012, from AWS to its own data centres.

WhatsApp had announced a policy change last year, nearly two years after the acquisition by Facebook.

The messaging app now shares some user data with Facebook, and this is being done to improve the ad experience across Facebook’s suite of products.

However, WhatsApp doesn’t share messages with Facebook, instead metadata like a user’s account number, name, profile picture, device used, login times are shared with the social network.

Facebook and WhatsApp are currently facing a privacy lawsuit in India over the change in privacy policy, which is being heard by the Supreme Court of India.