Microsoft partners: most customers don't care about local Office 365 hosting

Leading Microsoft partners have supported the vendor's decision to reverse its plans to automatically migrate Australian Office 365 customer data to local availability zones.

CRN revealed on Tuesday that customers currently hosted in Microsoft's Southeast Asia   region in Singapore will need to opt in to get Office 365 tenants migrated to the Australian region, otherwise their data will remain offshore by default. 

When Microsoft originally revealed Australian availability zones from Azure and Office 365, it talked up better performance as a selling point. The company is now urging customers not to take action unless data sovereignty concerns demand their data be migrated to Australia.

A Microsoft spokesperson told CRN that: "Our local data centres are designed primarily to provide Australian customers in regulated industries with in-country storage of core customer data at rest."

Thomas Duryea national general manager Michael Chanter said data migration isn't as simple as thinking all cloud services will be better onshore by default.

"If partners want to take customers' [Office 365 data] public, they need to provide an equivalent service, not just a cheaper one. I think in reality, partners need to understand that local hosting wouldn't provide that much of a benefit to performance," said Chanter.

He added that the changes were in line with feedback from Microsoft customers, whose expectations of what cloud can deliver has matured since the initial announcement.

"This is a reflection of increasing sophistication by Microsoft, who is recognising what customers require. This is a reflection of increasing sophistication of all cloud providers. They're starting to understand the complexity of cloud and the significance of where data and licensing reside," said Chanter.

"If you're going to adopt Office 365 at an enterprise level, a simplistic model used for SMB customers won't work the same."

Generation-e chief technology officer Loryan Strant downplayed the change: "We see it as a bit of a non-event. We think it's better now that it's opt-in because customers have the choice and can actively make their own decision. From Microsoft's approach, I think they see that it is in everyone's best interest."

Peter Lillywhite, chief executive of Melbourne-based Dilignet, said the news was a major enhancement to the migration process. The Melbourne cloud consultant is a finalist in Microsoft's Australian partner awards 2016 for excellence in mobility and devices.

"Dilignet has been working with a number of customers where Office 365 projects have been stalled. For customers who need to store their data locally, there has been no real way to prioritise these migrations due to legal and regulatory requirements," said Lillywhite.

"This change allows us to prioritise these businesses that require data sovereignty, for example, governments, public sector and specific sector. With this new feature, we can assure our customers that data can be hosted locally without having to be concerned about compliance. Customers also have the option to control where they want to move their data."

Nathan Belling, general manager of Brisbane-based Insync Technology, said customers with significant operations in Asia, for example, would prefer their tenant be left in Singapore. "Giving people a choice is always a good thing.

"Most workloads in Office 365 aren’t latency sensitive – the only exception typically being Skype for Business, so some customers may opt to move this closer to their users for better performance in voice and video."

Customers can request a migration through the Office 365 admin portal before 31 October, otherwise Microsoft cannot migrate data from Singapore.