News

Microsoft Azure Expands North of the Border

Two new datacenters in Canada will bring the global total to 22.

• By Jeffrey Schwartz
• 06/08/2015

Microsoft is expanding its Azure platform fast, as cloud computing continues its ascent as a worldwide technology.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company announced last week the latest addition to its ever-growing global network of cloud datacenters, including the creation of two datacenters in Canada, and an expansion of facilities in The Netherlands and India.

In all, Microsoft said it will shortly have 22 cloud regions and datacenters for Azure and nine for Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online. The company announced it'll host its cloud services in Quebec City and Toronto sometime next year. "This data residency will provide Canadian businesses with improved latency and geographic redundancy to help them better operate and compete," said Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft's corporate VP for cloud and enterprise marketing, in a blog post.

Microsoft pointed to an IDC forecast that projects spending on cloud computing services in Canada will grow 45 percent next year to $2.5 billion. Microsoft claims 80,000 businesses are already using the company's cloud services. Among those Microsoft referenced was Diply.com, a startup based in Ontario that uses Azure to push 850 million page views per day. Among other key Canadian customers are AutoTrader, Genetec and PCL Construction.

The new datacenters in Bangalore, India, will be available in preview mode next month, with plans to offer the deployments in the first half of next year, said Microsoft Executive Vice President for Cloud and Enterprise Scott Guthrie in a presentation in Bangalore Wednesday. "Services from local datacenters will open infinite computing capacity for Indian government departments, banks, telecom companies and enterprises of all sizes," Guthrie said. "This will help make Digital India a reality."