Cape Town – Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365 will soon be delivered from Microsoft data centres on African soil. Have you considered moving to the cloud?
Microsoft is bringing its global cloud infrastructure to Africa, with data centres in Cape Town and Johannesburg to connect you to the world.
On May 18, 2017, the tech titan announced its plan to launch two hyperscale cloud data centres in South Africa’s metropolitan hubs of Cape Town and Johannesburg.
“We’re excited by the growing demand for cloud services in Africa and their ability to be a catalyst for new economic opportunities,” explained Scott Guthrie (Executive Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise, Microsoft) at the time.
Guthrie’s sentiments were echoed at the 2018 Microsoft Tech Summit in Cape Town, where Nuri Cankaya (Senior Sub Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Azure) and Victoria Grady (General Manager, Microsoft Azure Experience Marketing) highlighted some of the benefits of the Azure environment and urged customers to start preparing for cloud migration.
A first for Africa
Microsoft has 54 Azure regions spanning the globe. The majority of these (42) are already available, while others have been announced, but not yet launched.
The data centres in Cape Town and Johannesburg are Microsoft’s first such facilities in Africa and represent a significant investment by the company, as well as a game-changing development for individuals and organisations concerned about data residency.
At present, customers based in Africa depend on cloud services delivered from data centres outside of the continent. It’s thus possible that data belonging to a business in Pretoria is actually being stored on a remote server in Amsterdam. It’s not an ideal situation, given that data is often subject to the laws of the country in which it resides.
Did you read last week’s blog post about data-privacy legislation? We covered South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, as well as the penalties for non-compliance in each case.
Microsoft’s SA-based data centres will provide secure cloud services across Africa, with the option of data residency in SA. The facilities are expected to be up and running later this year.
Microsoft wants you to be ready
A clear plan and a capable team will be necessary for successful cloud migration.
Microsoft has two training initiatives to help prepare your IT staff for the Azure environment: Azure Essentials and the DC Cloud Insider Certification.
We want you to be ready, too
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a detailed look at cloud computing and several Azure products and services as we map out the steps for your journey to the cloud.
