Microsoft Azure - Canada Datacenters - Yay!!

Its official folks. Microsoft Cloud Services landing in Canada.

https://reimagine.microsoft.ca/en-ca/

Microsoft today announced plans to deliver commercial cloud services from Canada. Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online will be delivered from Toronto and Quebec City in 2016...

 

I am sure more details will be coming out shortly, but for the moment, please do consider Azure and Cloud Services before you plunk down a bundle of cash to build that shiny new datacenter.

The cost economics of Cloud through Azure has always been super compelling...now you don't even have to worry about data residency requirements. Government agencies, large financial institutions and enterprises are all using or seriously considering the move to Cloud Services for the agility and cost savings. The advantages of Cloud Services are becoming a competitive advantage and running your own datacenters is soon going to be a thing of the past. You don't still run your own electric power generation equipment like factories of olden days, so why would you run datacenters and servers anymore? Just spend some time on the Azure site and learn about the advantages of the Cloud vs. your traditional services.

 

Canadian customers of all sizes are already in the Microsoft Cloud. Even today, Microsoft delivers cloud-based email, Office 365, and CRM Online to more than 80,000 Canadian businesses. Companies like Air Canada, Quebecor and Hatch are saving money while empowering their employees to collaborate, be more productive and mobile with Office 365, Yammer, and Skype for Business. “Information systems and technology continue to be a differentiator for Hatch as it helps us to gain advantages in the marketplace – our use of Microsoft cloud is an integral part of this success. We are now able to focus on our business while benefiting from all the innovation Microsoft offers with a Service Level Agreement we can count on.” Christopher Taylor, Global Director, Hatch.

Diply.com is a great example of an Ontario-based start-up leveraging Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud-based infrastructure. The company delivers 850M page views per month on Microsoft Azure and owns no servers. Diply.com is able to rent servers from Microsoft by the hour based simply on the demand they receive. “We only pay for what we use,” said Gary Manning, CTO and co-founder at Diply.com. “We estimate our cost per 1,000 users is only $0.07! We’d never be able to build that back-end infrastructure ourselves.”