Microsoft Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform for individuals, companies and governments. It offers services for compute, storage, data management, identity, messaging, media, content delivery, developer tooling, internet of things and AI. Customers deploy resources in Azure regions grouped into geographies such as the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific, and Microsoft states that each geography is designed to meet specific data-residency and compliance requirements. Azure is a public cloud service operated by Microsoft and is not open source.
Microsoft is a US company, so Azure is subject to US law, including the CLOUD Act, regardless of the region used. For Azure, Microsoft has committed under its EU Data Boundary to store and process customer data and personal data in the EU and EFTA, with documented exceptions where data is still transferred outside the boundary. Regional services deployed in an EU region are in scope, and some non-regional services need extra configuration. Microsoft also lists sovereign regions in Germany.