Microsoft launches Azure regions in Germany out of preview

Microsoft is announcing today that its data center regions in Germany Northeast (Magdeburg) and Germany Central (Frankfurt am Main) are now available to anyone interested in running applications and storing data through Microsoft Azure. The facilities will be able to run Office 365 from the first quarter of 2017 and Microsoft Dynamics from the first half of 2017.

Microsoft first announced plans to open these regions in November and began a preview in March. The regions are notable because they have a data trustee, T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. As such, the regions comply with Germany’s data handling laws, according to a blog post.

Azure is not the first public cloud to touch down in Deutschland. In 2014, public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) opened a Frankfurt data center region.

More geographical locations can mean lower application latency and faster data transfers. And they can enable certain types of organizations to start using cloud.

Earlier this month, Microsoft said its two U.K. data center regions had become generally available. Meanwhile, Azure regions are on the way in Korea, as well as two locations in the U.S. for the U.S. Defense Department.