Kiwi power! Microsoft is all set to bring an Azure region to New Zealand, bringing local access to cloud services to the country. That is, if it gets permission from the government.
The cloud giant has 58 Azure regions in 140 countries.
And it has applied for permission from the Overseas Investment Office of the New Zealand government to acquire sites where it will build its first Azure region in the country. As part of the OIO application, the firm said that it will add support for educational and training programs for New Zealanders.
Surefire way to get approval.
However, storing customer data at rest in New Zealand will be the primary benefit of this move, as will be meeting the security and compliance needs of the users in the country. These two are cited by the Redmond based company as the drivers for establishing this new region.
As Vanessa Sorenson, general manager, Microsoft New Zealand, put it:
“This significant investment in New Zealand’s digital infrastructure is a testament to the remarkable spirit of New Zealand’s innovation and reflects how we’re pushing the boundaries of what is possible as a nation.”
Microsoft currently operates four Azure regions in Australia, which also serve New Zealand customers.
But once live, the company will be able to provide cloud services from this new region, including the full Azure offering with compute, storage, artificial intelligence and databases. Same goes for solutions like the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, and the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
Since this news is in its early stage, details like the number and size of data centers to be built, their locations, and overall cost estimates have not been revealed.
In due time, as they say.
