On June 2nd, 2015 Microsoft 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, further strengthening Microsoft’s footprint in Canada’s competitive cloud landscape.
What does this mean to Canadians?
Microsoft announced plans to establish two data centers in Canada that will provide its cloud services to customers in the country.
The data centers in Toronto and Quebec City will be the first Microsoft cloud locations in Canada. The cloud services used by about 80,000 Canadian businesses today are served out of Microsoft data centers outside of the country.
The announcement may be welcome news for those in Canada who are concerned with data sovereignty, or the idea that access to data that’s stored within a country’s borders should be governed by that country’s laws. Data sovereignty and data privacy concerns have reportedly heightened around the world since former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked information about the agency’s widespread electronic surveillance capabilities.
Cloud service providers like Microsoft and Amazon have used these concerns as a way to make their services more attractive by building more data centers outside of the U.S.
The two Microsoft data centers in Canada are due to come online next year. They will support Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM Online.
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