One of the most prominent players in the European cloud hosting sector, OVHcloud, has initiated its inaugural public cloud ‘Local Zones’ in Brussels, Belgium, and Madrid, Spain. This strategic action forms part of OVHcloud’s ambitious endeavor to transform cloud deployment by applying an innovative, efficient model that incorporates state-of-the-art technologies from gridscale, a recent acquisition that is now part of the OVHcloud group.
The introduction of Local Zones in these two significant European cities represents a pivotal moment for OVHcloud, as it enhances clients’ access to the company’s public cloud services. These cloud zones will deliver reduced latency and adherence to local data residency rules, factors that may be crucial for businesses operating in sensitive sectors such as consultancy, healthcare, and finance. OVHcloud aims to ensure superior performance and regulatory compliance by situating services nearer to the end customers.
The advanced software stack of gridscale will form the technological basis for this evolution, permitting rapid deployment of cloud capacity across global locations in a matter of weeks. Besides accelerating OVHcloud’s ability to address client cloud services needs in new areas, this streamlined model will offer a more cost-effective solution than traditional data center expansions. By utilizing data center colocation facilities, these versatile and scalable Local Zones will present a competitive alternative in the public cloud computing infrastructure marketplace.
The goals of OVHcloud extend far beyond Belgium and Spain. The company has an ambitious strategy in place that aims for the establishment of up to 150 Local Zones globally by 2026. This expansion is directed towards establishing OVHcloud as a leading entity in multiple areas, in line with the increasing demand for cloud services across the world. The cloud firm plans to inaugurate about fifteen Local Zones in 2024 itself. Suggested potential locations include major European and U.S. cities like Prague, Marseille, Milan, Amsterdam, Zurich, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, New York City, and San José.
The deployment of these Local Zones as part of the company’s cloud infrastructure would focus on the importance of data residency for businesses, in addition to OVHcloud’s commitment towards offering an open and trusted cloud environment. The proximity of data processing and storage facilities to data sources or end users could become a competitive edge, especially for sectors under stringent latency and data security laws. The new Local Zones promise latency in single-digit milliseconds, which could benefit applications such as cloud gaming, ecommerce, content delivery networks (CDNs), and real-time data processing.
Clients utilizing these Local Zones would have access to a wide array of public cloud functionalities. This includes networking, computation, block storage, and local public IP addresses. With the aim of continuously improving the client experience, OVHcloud plans to expand these services in the near future. Expected additions include object storage and Managed Rancher Service for multi-cloud Kubernetes management.
The launch of these Local Zones represents OVHcloud’s commitment towards security and compliance, as well as innovation. Both of these new cloud zones have received their ISO/IEC 27001 certifications, along with additional endorsements in cloud services security (ISO/IEC 27017) and personal data protection (ISO/IEC 27018). These certifications ensure that customers can expect the highest security standards when deploying services within the OVHcloud environment.
“We are incredibly proud to announce today the opening of the first two OVHcloud Local Zones,” said Henrik Hasenkamp, CEO at gridscale. “We’ve been able to integrate and deploy gridscale‘s technology just five months after joining the OVHcloud family, offering customers new options to consume OVHcloud Public Cloud, with added performance and data residency. This is just the beginning of an ambitious roadmap targeting a total of 150 Local Zones by 2026. We just can’t wait!”
OVHcloud’s Local Zones situated in Madrid, Spain, and in Brussels, Belgium are now available in beta. Clients may initiate public cloud services directly from the OVHcloud client interface.
