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Cloud services provider Interoute has announced it will open up a new virtual data centre (VDC) zone in Frankfurt on December 1.
The new VDC zone is the seventh to be launched in 2014, the 14th overall, and the second in Germany, alongside the zone in Berlin launched in 2012. The firm launched data centres in Milan, Hong Kong, New York, London, Slough and Madrid this year.
It’s another step towards protecting data of European customers within EU borders, and offers ultra low, in-country latency and a resilient platform connected via fibre. It also plays into the trend of managed services; customers can spin up or down dependent on their needs with a hands on IT infrastructure or a fully managed service.
The company is also committed to startups, with the first year of access free via the JumpStart-up program.
“Expanding the application universe that can be moved to the cloud is central to Interoute’s approach,” said Matthew Finnie, Interoute CTO. “Critical from a German perspective is data control and location.”
The data centres are closely linked to Interoute’s CloudStore, a one stop shop for enterprises to deploy applications on the firm’s VDC. Speaking to CloudTech at the launch of the Hong Kong VDC, CloudStore general manager Lee Myall noted how it enabled smaller customers to buy IT on a ‘help themselves’ basis.
With concerns over the state of US data, many cloud providers are expanding their operations to Europe. Salesforce announced the opening of its first European data centre in London last month, with France and Germany in its sights, while Amazon Web Services launched a Frankfurt data centre region last month to great fanfare.
Alongside the virtual data centres, Interoute’s portfolio also comprises 12 data centres, 31 colocation centres, and over 67,000km of lit fibre.