Even though Microsoft Cloud Services are already available across Europe, with the company’s two new datacenters in the United Kingdom a couple of weeks back, this particular model, as stated by Microsoft, will provide a different option to an already available system, creating increased opportunities for innovation and economic growth for regulated partners and customers in Germany, the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
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Last year, Microsoft announced plans to open two German-only Azure data centres in the nation with data access and handling entrusted to Deutsche Telekom.
As Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella has been leading the push to reinvent the company with a mobile-first, cloud-first focus, Azure is expected to become an increasingly important business for the technology giant.
Microsoft today is announcing that its regions of data centers in two locations in Germany – Germany Northeast (Magdeburg) and Germany Central (Frankfurt am Main) – are now available for anyone to use for running applications and storing data through Microsoft Azure.
T-Systems Intentional provides additional controls over the data held in Germany to ensure data is only accessed by the customers or a data trustee. Each European Union member state must have its own privacy laws protecting individuals against information-collection by the government and corporations, and Germany’s Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, or BDSG) is considered one of the strongest in the EU.
With Industry 4.0-compatible integration of OPC Unified Architecture into Azure IoT Suite, customers and partners can connect their existing machines to Azure for sending telemetry data for analysis to the cloud and for sending commands to their machines from the cloud (i.e. control them from anywhere in the world) without making any changes to their machines or infrastructure, including firewall settings. The facilities will be able to run Office 365 for customers starting in the first quarter of 2017, and Microsoft Dynamics in the first half of 2017.
The are now 34 Azure regions announced globally, of which 30 are generally available -more than any other major cloud player.
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While Microsoft has a European presence with Azure, having the brace of German data centres opens up its cloud platform for better use in Germany, where the likes of major auto manufactures reside, by adhering to rules where corporate data must be kept within the country’s borders.
