Microsoft announces launching cloud region in Poland
Microsoft has officially announced that the 16th public cloud region of MS Azure in Europe will be located in Poland. The project called #polishdigitalvalley will be implemented in cooperation with the National Cloud Operator (OChK).
#polishdigitalvalley USD 1 billion project kick-off
During a specially organized online conference, on May 5th, Microsoft officially announced that Poland will join the list of countries where the MS Azure region will be located, which will contribute to speeding up the digital transformation process. The event was attended by representatives of Microsoft’s main partner in the project – OChK. The experience of Polish clients of Microsoft’s cloud services was also shown.
Microsoft announced that it is willing to invest a total of USD 1 billion both in go to market, training and of course infrastructure investments.
Regions of MS Azure – Poland represents CEE region
The MS Azure platform covers 59 regions and is available in 140 countries worldwide with over 100 data centres. However, Microsoft has not had a region in Central and Eastern Europe so far. In Europe, Microsoft has 15 regions, one of which, in Spain, has just been opened. The list of European countries includes France (Paris, Marseille), the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany (2xFrankfurt, Berlin, Magdeburg), Norway (Oslo, Stavanger), Spain, Switzerland (Zurich, Geneva) and Great Britain (London, Cardiff). As you can see, the provider does not necessarily decide on central locations in the capitals of the countries, which is the preferred option for each hyperscaler.
According to PMR Market Experts, Microsoft has been looking for a suitable location for its region in Poland for approx. two years, negotiating and considering various options, also outside Warsaw. The supplier sets very high requirements for its partners in terms of preparing the facility according to specific guidelines. For the needs of MS Azure, the single module in terms of IT capacity to be provided is 4.8 MW. This makes cooperation possible only with the largest suppliers on the basis of the existing facilities, and most often it is necessary to implement a completely new investment, which will meet Microsoft’s expectations. This is all the more so because the supplier always tries to guarantee itself the possibility of further expansion in a given location as a result of progressive expansion and sale of services.
Microsoft did not specify when the final launch of data center facilities in Poland will take place, but it assumes that this process may take up to two years.
Find comprehensive information about the current state of the Polish cloud computing market in the PMR report:
Latest PMR forecasts: dynamic growth of data centre and cloud market in Poland
The announcements of investments and the location of the so-called regions in Poland mean the need to provide significantly higher power and colocation space than at present. Google Cloud Platform was the first to announce the start of its region in Poland last year, informing about colocation based on the three existing facilities of commercial colocation providers. Also in partnership with OChK. It will use the colocation resources of the largest providers, which are able to provide the desired level of IT space for servers and, above all, power resources in Warsaw. GCP has thus put pressure on the other two largest public cloud providers. It was to be assumed that both Microsoft and AWS will also ultimately deploy their resources in Poland, creating their regions. None of the suppliers will build the facilities themselves, but will rent space on commercial terms. This will obviously translate into new investments and market growth. In practice, any such investment in a new module for a large customer is able to move the colocation market in the country to a higher level. Obviously, the above investments also confirm very good prospects for the cloud computing market in Poland.
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