Okta opens EU data centre  

Okta is rolling out plans to support its long-term commitment to EMEA. Okta has made substantial investments in state-of the-art data centre cell within Germany, which will allow EMEA customers to comply with EU privacy and data locality regulations.

Okta customers will now be able to utilise the full benefits of Okta’s cloud-based identity and mobile management services whilst ensuring that all data is kept within Europe. The data centre configuration means that it is easy for Okta to replicate similar infrastructure in other regions in the future, ramping-up quickly and efficiently. Okta customer Etihad Airways will lead the charge to utilise the new data centre, hosting 14 million members of its customer loyalty program in the EU data centre.

This move represents a milestone in the growth of the San Francisco-based company, which first launched into the EMEA market two years ago. The company has more than tripled both its sales team and customer count throughout the region over the last year. Phil Turner, General Manager of Okta EMEA says, “Okta’s investment in local infrastructure further demonstrates our commitment to the needs and legislative requirements of EMEA organisations. Growth in EMEA has been stellar for Okta, we’ve experienced expansion into most major markets including UK, France, Germany, Benelux, Nordics and Middle East, and signed-up enterprise organisations as well as smaller and midsized organisations.”

The move will further support Okta’s rapid EMEA growth plans, particularly into highly regulated industries such as financial services and banking. It will also address the strict data laws held by countries such as Germany.

Key technology components of the data centre include:
· A Location in Germany utilising private cloud infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services;
· An additional disaster recovery facility located in Ireland;
· The option for customers to keep all of their data in Europe through a single data centre facility located within Europe. This provides customers with 100% data sovereignty and data assurance; there will be no migration path back to US data centres;
· The EU data centre infrastructure and code base will be kept up to date on the same schedule as the US schedule; and
· The facility is operational and available to EMEA customers with immediate effect.