Summary: Microsoft is changing its cloud infrastructure footprint in Germany to align with global operations. The company launched two sovereign regions in 2016 to make up the Microsoft Cloud Deutschland (MCD): Germany Central in Frankfurt and Germany Northeast from Magdeburg. MCD was conceived as an isolated cloud environment to meet strict local data residency regulations. These regions will be retired in October 2021 and customers that move will be migrated to the Germany North (Berlin) and Germany West Central (Frankfurt) regions. These regions launched in August 2019 and Microsoft noted that momentum has been strong. It has now made Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI available in Germany West Central and Germany North. Azure AZs will come to the Germany West Central region in January 2021. Germany has always had strict data location rules, but it is increasingly difficult to isolate and run exclusively in-country. End users want access to a full suite of tools and features, the ability to set up infrastructure in multiple locations, and access to things like CDN and interconnection. The move to a more ‘standard’ infrastructure setup was basically inevitable. Frankfurt remains Germany’s primary cloud location, but this move points to Berlin – long a quiet market – as a possible secondary market of prominence. Munich would be fighting for this status as well and it could be that the emerging hub and spoke model in Germany will revolve around Frankfurt and have multiple spokes.
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