{"id":341392,"date":"2017-05-19T02:17:20","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T18:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1493133"},"modified":"2017-05-19T02:17:20","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T18:17:20","slug":"microsoft-will-soon-open-its-first-two-data-centers-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/microsoft-will-soon-open-its-first-two-data-centers-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft will soon open its first two data centers in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Microsoft today announced<\/a> that it will soon open two data center regions for its cloud-based services in Johannesburg and Cape Town South Africa. This marks Microsoft\u2019s\u00a0first data center expansion into Africa, and the plan is to get these new regions online in 2018.<\/p>\n

Like most of its other data centers around the world, these new\u00a0regions will offer\u00a0both Azure\u2019s suite of cloud computing tools for developers as well as productivity tools like Office 365 and Dynamics 365. With no data centers in the region, developers and other Microsoft customers currently have to\u00a0connect to\u00a0data centers in Europe\u00a0and accept the\u00a0increased latency that entails.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cFew places in the world are as dynamic and diverse as Africa today,\u201d Microsoft\u2019s executive vice president for its Cloud and Enterprise group Scott Guthrie writes in today\u2019s announcement. \u201cIn this landscape, we see enormous opportunity for the cloud to accelerate innovation, support people across the continent who are working to transform their businesses, explore new entrepreneurship opportunities and help solve some of the world\u2019s hardest problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The addition of these two\u00a0new regions brings Microsoft\u2019s\u00a0total number of regions to 40, significantly more than its biggest competitors. As far as competing cloud platforms go, Google currently offers its developers access to eight regions<\/a> (but has a plan to aggressively increase this number over the course of this year) and Amazon\u2019s AWS currently operates 16 regions and 42 availability zones.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that neither Google nor Amazon currently operate regions in Africa, though the number of data centers in the region\u00a0that are being operated by other companies\u00a0continues to increase rapidly.<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Microsoft today announced that it will soon open two data center regions for its cloud-based services in Johannesburg and Cape Town South Africa. This marks Microsoft’s first data center expansion into Africa, and the plan is to get these new regions online in 2018. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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