Microsoft and Beyond.pl signed an agreement allowing Polish customers to process their data with Microsoft Azure at a local Polish data center. Data Center 2 in Poznań thus became the first Azure Stack cloud location in both Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. Beyond.pl will offer selected Azure services from Q2 2018. Joint Azure Stack offer by Microsoft and Beyond.pl opens up a new opportunity to utilise full potential of Microsoft Azure for businesses and institutions with specific requirements regarding data storage and processing in Poland.

“Cooperation with Beyond.pl has given Microsoft Azure a Polish passport. Our customers now have the guarantee that their relevant key data will be processed locally in a Polish data center. At the same time, they will be able to use the full computing power and the global Microsoft Azure pack. This marks an important step towards even wider access to the Azure cloud by local businesses, and a promise of further solutions to meet demands of Polish Customers,” said Paweł Jakubik, Cloud Based Digital Transformation Lead at the Polish Microsoft office.

Azure Stack is not yet widely available in Poland, but the growing demand for localised services made Microsoft decide to launch the first service of this type together with Beyond.pl. Joint project between the two companies addresses the needs of the Polish companies and public institutions, which due to legal or industry constraints have to execute some of their procedures in Poland, including data processing in the cloud. These include financial, medical, public administration, defense and security, as well as oil sector.

“Azure Stack at our data center is a breakthrough for the IT industry, also from the European perspective. It a big milestone for Beyond.pl, as now we are going to offer Azure based hybrid services. What’s most important, elements of this environment will be available for data processing and storage in the Polish location,” said Michał Grzybkowski, CEO & founder of Beyond.pl.

Azure Stack is an extension Microsoft Azure, transferring the scalability and innovation of the global cloud to the local environment. This allows organisations to develop advanced applications using a hybrid cloud, maintaining the flexibility, efficiency, operatibility and control. At the same time, application developers can work on Microsoft Azure based IT solutions, using the consistent set of development tools and services. By doing that, businesses and institutions can launch solutions to answer their specific business scenarios faster, thus reducing the time they need to launch them on the market.

What’s important, Azure Stack services available at Beyond.pl are fully compatible with Azure services in other regions, and Polish customers will pay for the service plan prepared by Beyond.pl. Our customers will also have access to a single, consistent environment for application development in the cloud, and get the data sovereignty and security guarantee, which is a key issue for both partners.

Microsoft cloud services meet the top security and compliance requirements for data processing, including General Data Protection Regulation (Rozporządzenie o Ochronie Danych Osobowych, RODO) now the coming into force. As the Azure cloud supplier, Microsoft complies with international data management security standards (ISO 27018). Beyond.pl, on the other hand, is the first Rated-4 ANSI/TIA-942:2014 and ISO 27001 certified data center in Central and Eastern Europe.

Dynamic data volume increase and faster pace of innovation lead companies and institutions to draw new scenarios how they could use the public and hybrid could. As many as 74% big companies believe that hybrid cloud will have a significant impact on their projected business growth. According to the State of the Cloud 2017 report from RightScale, 58% of them already have a hybrid implementation strategy in place, which is 3% increase compared to last year. Azure Stack at Beyond.pl is the first stage of the continuous effort to make it easier for Polish customers to use the hybrid cloud model and comply with the relevant laws.

. Avanade Global Study: “Hybrid Cloud – from hype to reality”, 2014.

2. RightScale: “Stat of the Cloud 2017”, 2017.