10
NEWS IN BRIEF
Milan and the region of Lombardy
are attractive for IaaS providers
A growing number of network infra-
structure providers choose Lombardy,
Italy, and the city of Milan, as a critical
European area to be present in. The
region’s proximity to Africa, a rising
number of international IT businesses in
the region, opportunities that arose due
to Brexit, and the global burgeoning IaaS
market all at play in these developments.
An example of the trend is Heficed – a
network infrastructure provider, which
just launched its new point of presence
in Milan.
The rapid growth of the global In-
frastructure as a Service (IaaS) market
shows no signs of slowing down. Accord-
ing to Market Research Future (MRFR),
the IaaS market segment will reach
$59 billion by 2023, with a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than
23% forecast during the six-year period
between 2017 and 2023.
In the wake of such growth rate, spe-
cific regions, such as Lombardy in Italy,
are benefiting from this global tendency
more than others.
Lombardy’s, and Milan’s specifi-
cally, presence as a go-to IaaS region
is confirmed by the fact that global
players such as AWS and IBM are already
present in the vicinity or will be in the
nearest future. AWS is set to open its 1 st
in Italy and 6 th in Europe region in 2020,
while IBM has opened a centre of digital
technology, IBM Studios, this spring, and
is set to invest €40 million.
Another pulling factor working in fa-
vour of Milan and Lombardy is its close-
ness to North Africa, when compared to
other European regions with similarly
developed data centre infrastructure,
such as Frankfurt or Stockholm. Business-
es want to be able to reach North Africa
at low latencies, but the less advanced
African IT infrastructure environment
leads them to choose alternative loca-
tions outside the continent. n
NETWORKS
EUROPE
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Colt offers
on-demand
connectivity to
Google Cloud
Platform globally
Colt Technology Services will enable enterprises
direct, on-demand connections to Google Cloud
globally. Through the use of Colt’s Dedicated
Cloud Access (DCA) offering, powered by the
Colt IQ Network, customers can connect from
enterprise buildings or data centres to their
Google Cloud instances with customer-dedicat-
ed bandwidth as well as low latency.
Coupled with Colt’s On Demand offering,
which rolled out further in May, enterprises will
now be able to take full control over their net-
work, connecting to Google Cloud in real-time
via partner interconnect. Managed via a rich
self-service portal, On Demand networking
allows organisations to flex bandwidth require-
ments up and down in near real-time as well
as bypass legacy service delivery processes and
lead times.
The Colt IQ Network includes a 100Gbps
optimised, owned network, distributed to more
than 900 data centres and more than 27,500
buildings around the world. Enterprises across
Europe, Asia and the US can now connect to
Google Cloud in real-time.
Colt’s Vice President Product Portfolio, Peter
Coppens said: “Facilitating migration and
utilisation of the cloud has been a significant
priority for Colt over the past few years." n
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