Microsoft plans two Canadian data centres to address CIOs’ cloud concerns
June 2, 2015
Grazed from ITWorldCanada. Author: Shane Schick.
Here’s the mayor of Toronto, not an IT professional, but John Tory has no problem articulating why he sees potential in cloud computing. “I’m of the age where I still ask my children for advice about these things, but even I knew an 18-year-old email system was not something to be admired,” Tory told a press conference where Microsoft announced it is building two new Canadian data centres to support its cloud-based software products.
Since City Hall moved from Groupwise to Microsoft outlook, Tory added, “We’re now in a situation where we can respond properly.” Tory’s example is just one of the ways that Microsoft is hoping to encourage more businesses to make the leap from running legacy technology on their on premises to a cloud or software-as-a-service model…
The two Canadian data centres will be located in Toronto and Quebec, and will begin by offering its Azure service before the end of this year, executives said. For years, Canadian CIOs have been reluctant in some cases to use cloud computing over concerns that data would be hosted in foreign countries where different laws around privacy apply. They’ve also been very vocal about worries around how third party firms based in the U.S. or elsewhere might handle their data…