Updated: Microsoft goes Aussie for Azure

The cloud wars are heating up, with Microsoft pulling back the curtains on a locally hosted Azure presence.

The local Azure offerings are physically hosted in two datacentres, one in NSW, the other in Victoria. 

According to a Microsoft representative, the two facilities, one in NSW and the other in Victoria, are either owned by the company, or leased. But it won’t say which, the reason given is that knowing where and whose datacentre Azure operates out of will compromise customer security.

In a statement, Microsoft said the two datacentres will be geo-redundant which means if one falls over, services will automatically fail-over to the other facility. The company also said local hosting means data sovereignty issues are being addressed.

Services available from Azure include infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

According to the official Microsoft statement, the local Azure service isn’t yet fully live. The company was unable to state when it will go fully live, nor was it able to put CRN in touch with local channel and reseller partners.

Microsoft is the latest in a series of cloud providers opening up a local presence. In November last year, Amazon announced the locally hosted availability of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering.

AWS is hosted in Australia in two locations – one, an availability zone in Sydney’s Equinix SYD3, the other within a Sydney-based Global Switch data centre.

Australian is the ninth region in which the Amazon operates. At the time of its launch, Amazon stated it had 10,000 customers for AWS locally, with banner names including Commonwealth Bank, REA Group and Harvey Norman.

Amazon charges roughly thirty percent more for a locally hosted cloud presence than it does for a service originating in the US or Asia. The company explained the cost discrepancy as being related to local tax structures and transit costs.

In other cloud news, VMware today officially launched its cloud service in the US, with a local launch date yet to be confirmed.

Microsoft has yet to release local costings or other details for its locally hosted Azure service. CRN will update this story as more information comes to hand.