Microsoft Corp. said today it will open its first cloud region in Israel next year, bringing its total number of announced cloud regions to 56 across 21 countries.

When Microsoft talks about its cloud regions, it’s referring to one or more data centers deployed within a latency-defined perimeter and connected through a dedicated regional low-latency network. They’re different from availability zones, which are physically separate locations within a cloud region.

Microsoft said the Israeli cloud region will begin offering Azure services, with Office 365 to follow later. The new region is meant to help local customers adhere to data residency requirements that stipulate they must store some data within Israel. It could also help some firms comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, Microsoft said.

“Given the high usage of Office 365 with Azure, local data centers are a little more important for Microsoft than other cloud infrastructure providers as customers must often satisfy data residency requirements,” Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE. “But local data centers also mean better performance, as networking and round trip times are geographically influenced.”

Microsoft has a long association with Israel, dating back to 1989 when it opened its first local branch in the country. Then in 1991, it established a research and development center in the country, its first outside the U.S.

“We have made significant infrastructure investments in the region and with this announcement, our planned region in Israel will join a growing number of EMEA markets recently made available including Germany, Norway, South Africa and Switzerland,” said Michel van der Bel, president of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Offering Microsoft Azure and Office 365 from a data center region in Israel forms a key part of our investment and involvement in the startup nation, as infrastructure is an essential building block for the tech intensity that public sector entities and businesses need to embrace.”

The move comes after last month’s announcement it intends to open a new cloud region in Qatar, with Azure expected to be offered there in 2021, followed by Office 365 and Dynamics 365. In the last year, Microsoft has opened new data centers in Germany, Norway and Switzerland too.

Photo: Microsoft