A Guide for US Companies Hosting Infrastructure in Europe

With the market for cloud and hosting services rapidly growing, many large global cloud platforms are looking to host infrastructure in Europe. Recently, SaaS leader Oracle announced plans to open data centres in Germany and this follows the news of other providers opening data centres in the UK, France and Germany.

The obvious driving force for these service providers is to support their European expansion plans. It also makes them more appealing to customers who are concerned with data security and who must comply with in-country data requirements. 

Given the scale of the US players moving in to Europe, it’s interesting to examine the infrastructure options they choose. Oracle partnered with  colocation providers like Interxion to launch their services, and this aligns with a broader trend we’re seeing in the European market: despite cloud growth, few providers have actually migrated to a service-based infrastructure model (Iaas) approach to deploy their services. Interxion’s recent survey shows that the majority of service providers prefer to manage and own their own infrastructure within their own data centre or a third party facility.

The services that European data centre providers offer to their US headquartered customers are important in enabling them to do business in Europe. Given the fractured nature of the European market, this begins with helping them navigate the complexities of where to host their IT infrastructure.

To help companies through this process, Interxion has provided a guide that provides an overview of the criteria necessary to make a decision as well as the key strengths of various regions. For instance, Sweden is a gateway to the rest of Scandinavia and is a frontrunner in adopting new technologies and testing new consumer trends. France is a leading market for international telecoms backbones. Germany is the largest economy in Europe and boasts Frankfurt as one of the best-connected cities globally and a gateway into Eastern Europe and the Far East.

We suspect that as data protection laws intensify, US companies will continue to expand their European presence. The crucial decision of where to locate infrastructure is daunting, but the key to success is asking the important questions upfront and matching each region’s strengths with particular corporate goals. For more information about Interxion’s role in this process, please refer to our whitepaper, Selecting the Best European Locations for your IT Infrastructure.