Microsoft Cloud datacenter regions now available in the United Arab Emirates to help fuel future economic ambitions as well as deliver increased performance for customers and partners in the Middle East.
Today, Microsoft took a significant step in its support of digital transformation across the Middle East, as it launched two new cloud regions in the United Arab Emirates. These new regions – Microsoft’s first in the Middle East – will empower customers and partners to embrace the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and achieve more.
The new cloud regions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai join Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure – one of the largest and most secure in the world – to provide organizations, enterprises and developers in the UAE with access to scalable, highly available, and resilient cloud services while maintaining data residency, security and compliance needs. The new UAE locations will also deliver increased performance for Microsoft Cloud services to Middle East customers and partners.
“These new cloud regions in the United Arab Emirates are the dawn of a new era, driving digital transformation, economic growth and job creation,” said Sayed Hashish, Regional General Manager, Microsoft Gulf. “We are committed to empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Now, more customers in the Middle East can move with confidence to the trusted and intelligent Microsoft Cloud. They will be more competitive as they start their digital transformation journeys – engaging customers, empowering employees, optimizing operations, and reinventing products and services.”
Starting today, Azure and Office 365 are available from the new datacentres in the Middle East. Forming part of a growing portfolio of integrated cloud infrastructure, platform, data, application and collaboration services. Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, offering the next generation of intelligent business applications and tools, are anticipated to be available from the cloud regions in UAE by the end of 2019.
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Check out other stories making the news in the technology ecosystem in Africa and the Middle East.
The private and hybrid Microsoft cloud delivers a cybersecurity step-change for East Africa’s data-sensitive organisations, providing a doorway to high-speed data safety.
Nairobi, 16th May 2019:
Liquid Telecom Kenya, part of the leading pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom, has today launched a Microsoft Cloud service in East Africa that offers a step-change in cybersecurity for the region’s most sensitive databases.
The new Azure Stack service will allow companies to run a private Microsoft cloud within East Africa, rather than at one of Microsoft’s 54 public data centres located outside the region. This means users benefit from the cutting-edge security protocols developed and run by Microsoft on its cloud platforms, while holding their data locally, which makes data uploading faster for databases that can be as large as one terabyte or more.
The service will be available from today across East Africa, hosted in private cloud nodes in Kenya and Tanzania, which makes it possible to replicate databases at different locations to increase reliability and flexibility.
“The data transmission time to Europe is around 200 milliseconds, and for the closest Microsoft cloud server, in South Africa, 55 milliseconds. But the new Azure Stacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam will mean data transfer speeds of less than 20 milliseconds for all users within East Africa,” said Winston Ritson, Group Head of Cloud Services for the Liquid Telecom Group.
This increase in speeds will transform back-ups and uploads from previously lengthy processes to swift data exchanges. Globally, companies have reported that this has transformed their operations. With one logistics company in California achieving a 50% improvement in service delivery on increased data speeds.
Using Azure Stack also opens the way to a level of cybersecurity that few organisations have the capacity to develop. “Microsoft spends some $1bn a year on ensuring the security of its Azure platforms. This is a scale of spend and professional attention that companies cannot match or surpass in securing their data,” said Winston.
This comes as East Africa’s data security continues to deteriorate. In 2017, Kenya lost over Sh21bn to cybercrime. But the nation’s losses are forecast to rise further on new cyber threats. Including attacks on built-in Windows IT admin tools, PowerShell files and Windows Scripting executables.
“Developing the Azure Stack in East Africa has required intensive development and co-operation between Liquid Telecom and Microsoft.” said Adil El Youssefi, CEO East Africa, Liquid Telecom. “However, we believe that in offering a now unequalled level of cybersecurity, it has delivered yet another vital pillar to the economic development of Kenya and East Africa.”
Microsoft Announces Africa Datacenters are available. Its Africa Cloud Regions are live.
Today, Microsoft announced its Africa datacenters are live. The two Datacenters located in South Africa will bring Microsoft’s total available and announced cloud regions to 54. Microsoft says the datacenters will begin to generally offer Azure service followed by office 365 and Dynamics 365 services in the near future.
“Azure is the first of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud services to be delivered from the new datacenters in South Africa. Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity solution, is anticipated to be available by the third quarter of calendar year 2019, while Dynamics 365, the next generation of intelligent business applications, is anticipated in the fourth quarter”.
The two regions, South Africa North and South Africa West are located in Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively.
“Azure is the first of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud services to be available from the new Microsoft cloud datacenters in Africa. And will be followed in the future by Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity solution, Office 365, and Dynamics 365, the next generation of intelligent business applications.”
Announced first in May 2017 with initial availability in 2018. The infrastructure had some setbacks that Microsoft said had to do with third-party supplier unable to deliver to specification. It was however expected in 2019.
Yousef Khalidi Corporate Vice President of Azure Networking at the event said; “with the availability of Microsoft’s cloud services delivered from Africa it will mean local companies can securely move their business to the cloud”.
Microsoft becomes the first cloud provider ahead of Amazon and Huawei go to live with its datacenters. The other cloud providers are scheduled to open or run Africa cloud regions.
New Microsoft South Africa Managing Director, Lillian Barnard spoke at the event and had this to share. “Technology is changing the way we live and work. She also says it will ultimately determine how businesses grow and innovate and Africa and Africa will not be left behind. At Microsoft we strongly believe that these substantial development in infrastructure, innovation and skills development will help South Africa navigate the fourth industrial revolution and set the country up for digital success. With today’s announcement we are aiming to accelerate these opportunities“.
The first Campus Connect Summit, A Microsoft Education Partner Summit takes place in Nairobi.
Microsoft hosted a 2 day education partner summit in Nairobi at the Villa Rosa kempinski hotel. The event brought together over a hundred Microsoft education partners, educators and from across the country.
Preparing graduates for 21st Century panel discussion led by (from Left) Michael Rasugu with panelist Audrey Cheng, Henry Hickman, Nancy Mokua and Sebuh Haileleul.
Conversations of the day higned on the theme; Digital Transformation in Higher Education – Future Trends and Best Practices. Through panel discussions and keynotes that explored Microsoft’s technologies enabling digital transformation in Education. Including Other Microsoft Education Partner solutions addressing challenges in Higher Education.
Claudia Johnston, Microsoft Education Sector Enterprise Channel Manager, Sub Saharan Africa speaking at event.
Sharing on Microsoft’s Vision in Education was Simon Ouattara, Education Lead MEA Multi Cluster Countries. He said “At Microsoft we have made a commitment to impart digital skills to 10 million youth across MEA in the next three years”.
The event saw Microsoft highlighting products like Microsoft Azure, LinkedIn and Microsoft 365.
Register to participate in Microsoft’s Future Summit 2019 digital event.
Microsoft’s flagship event that talks about the hottest technology topics, Future Summit 2019 is here. Join the event that also delves into and discusses the future of AI on January 30th. Future Summit 2019 will showcase Microsoft’s AI platform and services and the opporunities that exists.
The event is organised by the Microsoft Cloud Society Program. Microsoft Cloud Society is a program designed to skill up an individual into becoming an expert in the space of cloud computing and AI. It also identifies and engages passionate cloud computing focused experts.
AI, Combined with human ingenuity, is already helping people do amazing things. At Microsoft, we believe that AI, with people as its center, can extend our capabilities beyond our imagination.
Microsoft Future Summit is a unique event focusing on similar topics of intense interest. Join us virtually to view the event on-demand, which was held in Mother City of Cape Town on September 13th.
You will be able to hear from the experts about how AI can help us reconcile with nature, reinvent healthcare, and change the transportation landscape. Our agenda promises to ignite heated discussions on the hottest topic in technology today.
