Russia continues to draw investors from all over the world, as the sixth-most attractive country for foreign direct investment. The commercial market for data centers in Russia has been growing at around 25 percent per year over the last five years.
This growth is facilitated by both the cool climate, which reduces re-cooling costs, and changes to the country’s data protection law, which calls for the personal data of Russian citizens be stored on servers located in Russia.
The most sought after Russian city to set up a data center is Moscow. 16 of the 20 largest data centers of the country operate in the capital, each of which contains more than 1,000 racks and has a total capacity of 12 MW on average.
Data Protection Law
On September 1st, 2015, Federal Law No. 242-FZ came into force in Russia. In a nutshell, the law requires all foreign businesses that handle the personal data of Russian citizens to keep this data on servers located within the country. To comply with this measure, anyone collecting or processing such data must notify the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications – Roskomnadzor – about the exact location of the servers.
Climate Benefits
The cold Russian climate is perfect for date storage and does not require additional costs on year-round re-cooling systems, which makes its favorably different from the weather in Silicon Valley, or its equivalents in India, China, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Siberia and the Russian Far East, where construction of the first data center has just begun, can prove most advantageous in terms of climate and access to energy.
A Few Data Center Options in Russia
The strategic location of Datapipe’s new facility in Moscow lets global enterprises operate and sell in Russia while abiding by the country’s data sovereignty laws. In addition, it will continue their global expansion allowing their clients to take advantage of the rapidly growing e-commerce industry in Russia.
NTT Communications to Offer Data Center Services in Russia
IXcellerate’s facility offers premium enterprise-class data center services in a top-quality environment for customers to locate telecom, Internet and IT infrastructure. NTT Com Russia will integrate and expand its network, cloud and hosting services in the Russian market by taking advantage of this superior facility.
Telehouse Enters Russia with Moscow Data Center
To expand into Russia, Telehouse took about 70,000 sq ft of space at the facility of local provider, Dataspace, located in the center of Moscow.
For more information on the international data center marketplace, contact one of our data center experts here.
