Windows Azure Expands its Reach to Japan
February 25, 2014
Grazed from eWeek. Author: Pedro Hernandez.
In its bid to become a global cloud computing powerhouse, Microsoft is looking far and wide. This time, the Redmond, Wash.-based software company set its sights on Japan. Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of Cloud and Enterprise marketing at Microsoft, announced in a Feb. 25 blog post that the company was just about to flip the switch on its Windows Azure cloud operations on that day. "I am pleased to share that Windows Azure in Japan East (Saitama Prefecture) and Japan West (Osaka Prefecture) will be generally available later Tuesday [Feb. 25]."
The expansion of Windows Azure’s global footprint dovetails with the region’s increasing demand for cloud computing. "Japan’s cloud market has grown considerably in the last few years and this growth is only expected to increase, with the projected 2014 forecast estimated at around $1.6 billion," added Numoto, citing figures from IDC, a market research firm. In addition to providing business customers with a bevy of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings, Windows Azure in Japan’s dual-data-center layout can help them avert data loss…
Numoto boasted that the new regions "provide local customers the ability to achieve data residency and realize data recovery scenarios, as data will be replicated between the two regions."…
Read more from the source @ http://www.eweek.com/cloud/windows-azure-expands-its-reach-to-japan.html/
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