Salesforce.com opens UK datacentre to support data sovereignty

Cloud software company Salesforce.com has announced its first UK datacentre, which is also its first in Europe.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is among a number of UK organisations looking at the new site to deploy its Salesforce.com application.

For CIOs in certain regulated industries and government agencies, data sovereignty is one of the barriers to using public cloud applications such as Salesforce.com.

The UK is the sixth datacentre site for the provider of cloud customer relationship management (CRM) software, but its first in Europe.

Speaking at the Salesforce1 World Tour in London, George Hu, chief operating officer at Salesforce.com, commented on the growth of the company's operations in the region.

"We have delivered 42% growth in Europe year on year," he said. 

The UK datacentre will be used to support adoption of Salesforce.com's cloud computing services for customers in Europe.

Having a datacentre in the UK is a statement of intent, said Ian Cohen, CIO of Jardine Lloyd Thompson.

"Datacentres in the heart of Europe will bring more business to Salesforce.com," said Hu, adding that it plans to open datacentres in France and Germany in 2015.

One of the organisations assessing the UK datacentre is the FCA. Speaking at the conference, Gareth Lewis, CIO of the FCA, said financial stability is incredibility important and the consumer needs a degree of protection.

The FCA needed new systems to support consumer credit regulation. "We had six months to set up a platform. We started in January 2014 and went live on 1 April," he said. 

The implementation of the system to support consumer credit regulation was not trivial. "It could not be achieved in-house, so we bet the farm on Salesforce.com," said Lewis.

The cloud company has also rebranded the London skyline. "We want to create a permanent hold for Salesforce.com in the UK. We are in the UK for the long term and we are creating a world-class briefing centre in London," said Hu.

To achieve this, the company has expanded its offices at the Heron Tower, which has now been renamed the Salesforce Tower.