Windows Azure users in the Saitama Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture in Japan will now be able to make most of the technology as the Microsoft has announced Tuesday the availability of the cloud service.
Windows Azure Japan was first announced last year to address the growing market for cloud services. The demand for Azure storage in Japan has grown 10 times compared to the demand in the last 15 months. For those not familiar, the Windows Azure is a flexible and open platform in the cloud that allows one to efficiently build applications, deploy them, and manage such applications across a Microsoft-managed datacenters across the globe.
"These new regions will help fulfill the current and future needs of our cloud customers with secure and highly available services that help them grow their business. In addition, they provide local customers the ability to achieve data residency and realize data recovery scenarios, as data will be replicated between the two regions," wrote Microsoft corporate vice president for cloud and enterprise marketing Takeshi Numoto.
"Building an enterprise class cloud infrastructure that exceeds our customers' expectations is our ultimate goal. At Microsoft, we are making this goal real by bringing a deep enterprise legacy to our customers worldwide," Numoto added.
Numoto disclosed that Microsoft has invested billions of dollars to improve its cloud infrastructure to cater to more than a billion customers spread across 90 markets who using more than 200 services that depend on the cloud.
The two new data centers located on opposite coasts will ensure continuity as each mirrors the other. One of the major issues of the cloud services has been reliability following the strong earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeast portion of the country in 2011.
The expansion of Microsoft in the Asia Pacific region is very aggressive as a big chunk of its revenue comes from its sales of its cloud services. As economies in Asia become larger, the better infrastructure will better serve different companies that want to operate in the region.
Aside from expanding its Azure infrastructure in Japan, China, and Australia, the company has also announced in December its plan to build a data center in Brazil.
Windows Azure promises 99.95 percent service level on a monthly basis and features automatic updates and patches so its users will not have to worry about infrastructure issues but focus on creating and deploying their applications.
