Microsoft launches first data centres in Middle East

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UAE - Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it will be launching two data centres in the UAE - its first in the Middle East region - which will be operational in early 2019.

The centres will be located in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and will offer Microsoft Cloud services, comprising Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365, to help organisations accelerate their digital transformation journeys, experts noted.

Speaking to Khaleej Times in an interview, Sayed Hashish, regional general manager of Microsoft in the Gulf region, said that the announcement is part of Microsoft's global strategy to expand its data centre footprint. Microsoft also announced plans to open other data centres simultaneously in Switzerland, France, and Germany.

"This brings our data centre footprint to a total of 50 regions globally, and we believe that this is the largest of any major cloud provider," Hashish said. "As Microsoft, we have been in the region for over 25 years, and we have been very committed to the vision of the country. We have seen a huge uptake in the demand for digital transformation from our customers in the region, so these data centres are designed to aid them with their proximity and services offerings."

"When you look at the demand for cloud services, you begin to see that it is not just large corporations, but even small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are looking for this level of expertise," he added. "We have seen in the past couple of years that a lot of customers have increasingly put their trust in the Microsoft Cloud services, and once we crossed a certain threshold, we knew that we needed to have a data centre here that could help support their needs."

Hashish also announced that Etisalat Digital will be working closely with Microsoft as a Cloud Solutions Provider, offering integrated connectivity with Microsoft ExpressRoute as well as private cloud services using Azure Stack. Etisalat is also providing consulting, migration and managed services to ensure the smooth transition of business customers to the cloud and sees tremendous potential from Microsoft's intelligent cloud service from data centers.