Strictly Private & Confidential — For Management Review
Region Strategy Update · June 2026

The build is moving in Amsterdam. Dublin is still the destination.

Azure cannot currently provision the compute families our approved design needs in North Europe (Dublin). The restriction is region-wide, with no committed clear date. Rather than wait, we have started the first Dev / Sandbox environment in West Europe (Amsterdam) on matched AMD compute. Everything is Terraform-defined, so the later move to Dublin is a region change, not a rebuild.

Status
Dev build underway — West Europe
Production target
North Europe (Dublin)
As of
June 2026
Audience
Management review
This week
Dev / Sandbox provisions
Amsterdam, on AMD compute matched to our sizing
< 10 ms
Dublin adjacency
West Europe neighbours North Europe
0
Compliance compromises
EU Data Boundary holds exactly as designed

Our production region is blocked — so we started where capacity exists

The approved design puts production in Dublin. Azure can't provision it there today, so the build has started next door in Amsterdam. Production moves to Dublin as soon as capacity opens.

The plan, and the block

Our approved design puts production in Dublin (North Europe). Azure cannot provision any of the compute families that design needs there — they are restricted region-wide for capacity.

This is not a quota we can raise. We confirmed it directly and escalated to Microsoft Support, who classified it as a capacity backlog with no committed clear date. Waiting on it would have stalled the whole build.

What we did

We stood up the first Dev / Sandbox environment in West Europe (Amsterdam) — the nearest fully-EU region with capacity, on AMD compute matched to our original sizing.

North Europe stays the intended home for production. This changes sequencing, not the destination: because everything is Terraform-defined, the later move to Dublin is a region change, not a rebuild.

Why West Europe holds up

Amsterdam satisfies every constraint that made Dublin the right choice — and the move costs us nothing to reverse.

Inside the EU Data Boundary

Amsterdam is EU-resident. Our GDPR posture and MNPI data residency hold exactly as designed — no compliance compromise.

Adjacent to Dublin

West Europe neighbours North Europe at single-digit-millisecond latency. The later production hop to Dublin is seamless.

Available today

AMD D/E-series and B-series are open to us now. Engineering provisions this week instead of waiting on Azure.

Same compute spec

The AMD families match our original Intel sizing on vCPU and memory. No re-architecture of workloads or node pools.

Architecture unchanged

Environments, identity, network, the managed data layer and production DR pairing are all intact. Only the first region and compute vendor shift.

Fully reversible

Everything is Terraform-defined. Region is a variable — nothing here locks us out of moving production to Dublin.

The plan from here

Build out West Europe now, while pursuing three parallel levers to bring Dublin capacity forward.

01Now

Build out West Europe

In motion

Provision Dev / Sandbox this week on AMD compute and stand up the environment, identity and data layer per the approved design.

02Next

Prove the architecture

Validation

Validate the full stack in West Europe — once it runs here, the Dublin move is a region change, not a rebuild.

03Parallel

Three levers to bring Dublin capacity forward

Capacity strategy
Support caseOpen
Logged and backlogged with Microsoft. A Standard plan buys a faster SLA and a named escalation path over the free tier.
Account teamKey lever · needs sign-off
A Microsoft account rep can secure priority capacity for critical workloads. Tied to our spend, and needs management sign-off.
Capacity reservationHard guarantee
The moment Dublin capacity opens, a reservation locks the SKUs in for production ahead of need — the only hard guarantee.
Keep the destination: North Europe stays the production target throughout. Budget envelope and DR posture are unchanged while we wait on capacity.

A small, reversible shift in sequencing keeps the build moving

The destination and the budget are unchanged.

Management takeaway The build is moving now in West Europe, on the same architecture, with Dublin still the production target.
Unblocked

The build is unblocked

Dev / Sandbox provisions this week in Amsterdam on AMD compute matched to our original sizing — no waiting on Azure.

Reversible

Nothing is locked in

Architecture, budget envelope and DR posture are unchanged; Terraform makes the later move to Dublin a region variable, not a rebuild.

Decision

One decision to make

Authorising a Microsoft account team is the highest-leverage step to bringing production home to Dublin — it needs management sign-off.