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.
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“.
It’s been reported that the planned 2018 initial availability of Microsoft’s datacenters didn’t go live because of “the inability of a third-party supplier to deliver to specification“. It is however expected in 2019, but no dates have been confirmed yet because apparently it is an “unprecedented level of infrastructure“.
Microsoft announced in May 2017 that it was going to deliver its Microsoft Cloud from datacenters in Africa. By opening an Azure region in Africa, with two datacenters in South Africa. In Johannesburg, South Africa North and Cape Town, South Africa West. The announcement said the datacenters will be delivered with initial availability in 2018. I have often wondered and paid attention to know when, as this affects our region in many ways.
Microsoft South Africa’s Director of Commercial Partners, Lionel Moyal, said the two Azure datacenter regions are due to go live at the end of 2018. He said we are within weeks. Lionel was speaking to entrepreneurs and startups at the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018 in South Africa about Microsoft’s new Head Start initiative. He shared that “latency will not be an issue any more. It is not just for South Africa it is a cloud for Africa. About creating trust and impactful projects”.
From an investment point of view Lionel Moyal said IDC reports South Africa expects to add 112,000 IT specific jobs by 2022. That there is a shortage of skills in IT jobs. And the growth rate of IT jobs is 3 times more than national job opportunities. People need to skill up in cloud technologies, machine learning, AI, mobile technologies, development tools.
Join the Gulf Data Community for Azure Migration Day event and learn about Microsoft’s cloud technologies and infrastructure.
Are you a developer or IT Professional interested in building cloud applications. Or moving your organizations data, apps and solutions to the cloud? Then join the Azure Migration Day event scheduled to take place November 3rd 2018 at the Microsoft office in Dubai.
The training event is organized by the Gulf Datacenter Community in partnership with Microsoft. With two Microsoft Datacenters scheduled to be available in the UAE and Africa, the community shares and learns about Microsoft’s Cloud & Datacenter infrastructure technologies. Led by Microsoft Cloud & Datacenter experts, Microsoft MVPs, other industry experts, etc.
The Azure Migration Day training event will look at Azure migration services, using Azure Site Recovery and Database Migration Service. How to assess on premises workloads for migration to Azure. Performing performance based sizing and Migration suitability of on premises machines.
Durban Azure User group invites you to a Designing Modern Apps for Azure Datacenters in Africa Meet up
Join the Azure Transformation Labs meet up geared at getting you ready for Microsoft’s Datacenters in Africa. If you are looking at building cloud based applications this event is for you. Learn how to build modern apps on Azure. The event is hosted and will be led by various Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP).
The invitation reads; “Join us for the Next Durban Azure User Group Meetup at LCIBS Westville Durban on the 25th July at 6pm.”
“With the excitement and the arrival of the New Azure Datacenters in Africa, Get Ready to transform your old legacy infrastructure & apps into modern, yet simple apps for Africa and the Globe.
Designed for anyone, Azure Transformation Labs (ATL) is a hands-on in-depth learning experience where we get to unleash Azure technologies to solve human problems. Our mission statement as Azure Durban User Group is to become heroes in solving human problems using Azure technologies.
Living in and around Durban, South Africa and want to participate in the meet up? Register for free and plan to be part of this event.
