Cloud Provider OVH Opens Shop In London With New Data Centre

European cloud hosting provider OVH has opened its first UK data centre in London as part of a five-year, €1.5 billion (£1.34bn) global expansion strategy.

The UK is a key location in the company’s plans to increase its European footprint and cement its position as Europe’s biggest cloud provider, following the opening of other facilities in Poland and Germany.

Regions in Australia and Singapore have also recently been launched, making this the fifth data centre that OVH has opened in less than a year.

Cloud footprint

The expansion is now in full swing following a capital increase of €250 million (£223m) from two investment funds by KKR and TowerBrook in 2016, as OVH seeks to capitalise on an ever-growing demand for cloud services.

The company currently boasts more than one million customers around the world, with 22 data centres across four continents and a bandwidth capacity of 11 Tbps.

The new London data centre houses 40,000 servers and will enable UK-based businesses to take advantage of the reduced latency and increased reliability that comes with having a local presence, as well as meeting regulatory compliance.

The latter is a notable concern with Global Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) on the horizon, which will require businesses to know exactly where their customer data is stored at all times.

“This marks a significant step forward for OVH in supporting UK customers with a local dedicated gateway into our worldwide network,” said Hiren Parekh, cloud director for EMEA at OVH. “We are offering low latency, guaranteed bandwidth and enhanced DDoS protection for all of our customers.

“It is particularly beneficial for those working in the finance sector or public services, where hosting data in-country is a key requirement in order to be compliant with data protection and governance, and the protection standards of their customers.”

Capital growth

OVH isn’t the only cloud firm flying in the face of Brexit, as many of the world’s biggest companies have continued to invest in their London operations.

For example, last month Google opened a London data centre region in order to expand its European footprint for the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), touting London as “the home of digital and the home of digital innovation”.

IBM then quickly followed suit, launching a new data centre in the UK capital as part of a global expansion plan that also saw facilities open in California and Sydney.

Just last week Amazon doubled the number of R&D roles in London to coincide with the opening of a new UK head office, all of which clearly shows that London remains an attractive destination for tech companies.

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