Nowadays, using cloud platforms significantly reduces the cost of computing and data storage for companies. So there’s no surprise that the market of cloud solutions is growing all over the world. As G-Core Labs infrastructure is present on 5 continents and includes more than 100 points of presence in 60+ cities, we can track the dynamics by regions and share our observations on the regional specifics of the European cloud services market.
Global and local service providers often have only a few points of presence in Europe, providing them with very high capacity. Localizing servers at one location allows to significantly reduce their maintenance costs. Due to this, prices for standard servers in Europe are generally low, as opposed to, for example, the Asian or Latin American market. As for G-Core Labs, we chose the strategy of being an edge provider, i.e. we distribute points of presence all over the continent and provide our clients with the best performance regarding network efficiency and connectivity in our mind. After all, for many industries such as gaming, online retail, media, or gambling, the shortest response time is the most critical factor.
Another competitive advantage in the European market, especially for the public sector, will be the availability of local capacities. For example, our client, one of the European ministries of health, had an essential requirement of having its own data center in its country of residence, not just on the territory of the European Union. At the same time, there is a large number of languages, VAT rates, and currencies other than the euro in Europe. Therefore, an accurate localization of cloud services is of great importance. When signing up to G-Core Labs control panel, a user chooses the country of residence, and after verifying phone number and credit card, we assign the correct VAT rate automatically.
The European market is also characterized by the growing demand for custom configurations—servers designed for a specific load profile or some unique hardware. This is a strong advantage of G-Core Labs, as we initially proceed from the client’s needs and take an individual approach. Not a lot of global providers would do this, as the development of custom solutions may not pay off in case of a large-scale service.
Written by by Dmitry Samoshkin,
Vice President of Products at G‑Core Labs