Microsoft Azure in Australia Goes Live Today
Cloud engineers from Down Under start their week by getting a new IaaS provider. The popular Microsoft Azure cloud is now available for use within Australia. Microsoft recently began building out datacenters in Australia and on Monday morning, Microsoft mentioned that the Azure datacenter in Australia would be ready for users to begin spinning up virtual machines and other cloud services. Previously, those who utilized Azure while being located in Australia typically used the servers located in Singapore for all enterprise facing apps. With the new Azure datacenters being available in Australia, organizations will get a much quicker ping time than they previously enjoyed.
Michael Warrilow from Gartner Research mentioned, “With AWS and Microsoft operating in Australia, local organizations benefit from the global competitiveness and scale these clouds behemoths offer.” Warrilow continued by saying, “Further, regulators will rest assured that not all eggs are going into one cloud basket. This will provide relief because uptake of infrastructure as a service is rapidly approaching one in two enterprises globally, with Australian organizations increasing their usage over the last year, after a slow start.”
Industry experts expect providers such as VMware and Google to follow suit in building out cloud data centers on Australia’s mainland. With so many organizations worried about the security of their data offshore, more cloud data centers from all vendors will pop up in specific countries all around the world. Since Australia is emerging as one of the leading countries for business and technology in the Asian-Pacific rim, it makes sense that cloud technology would be warmly welcomed on the big island.
Toby Bowers from Microsoft Australia mentions that he expects Azure to compliment what organizations have already implemented within their environments. Bowers is quoted in the Australian Financial Review as saying, “We understand that the cloud market is crowded and we want to provide customers choice and flexibility. We think we can deliver the best cloud service in Australia, but obviously there are lots of scenarios in the enterprise where we fit into a broader strategy.”
