Microsoft Launches Commercial Cloud Services from Local Datacenters in India

Microsoft announced the availability of Microsoft Azure services via local datacenter regions in India. As the first public cloud provider from India, Microsoft has opened three new regions – Central India in Pune, South India in Chennai, and West India in Mumbai. Governments, large businesses, small and medium businesses (SMBs) and citizens can use the massive computing power now available locally to fuel India’s inclusive growth, spur innovation and accelerate digital transformation.

In the words of Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, “The Microsoft cloud in India will transform the way computing is done in the country.  The hyper-scale cloud will empower governments, businesses and users and offer enough computing power that will support all their existing workloads. We are happy to partner with Government and businesses to make the Microsoft cloud work for India and for Indians.”

Built on foundational principles of security, privacy & control, compliance and transparency, Microsoft cloud services are designed to enable individuals and organizations to achieve more.

In addition to the Microsoft Azure services launched, Office 365 services are slated for availability in October 2015, with Dynamics CRM Online services to follow in the first half of 2016.

Millions of users in India are already using Microsoft cloud services leading to the cloud business growing by more than 100 percent year on year over the past two years.  With the local cloud services, regulated industries such as BFSI, government departments and state-owned enterprises will now be able to leverage public cloud services and be able to take advantage of local data residency. In addition, businesses that deal with large amounts of data e.g. media companies, will benefit from data replication in multiple regions within India for backup and recovery, reduced network distance, lower latency, and the option of a private connection to the cloud.

In addition,

• Startups and SMBs will gain a competitive advantage with enterprise-grade technology to help them innovate and grow their business to a global scale.
• Education Sector will witness transformational digital learning.  Just one offering, Microsoft Edu-Cloud, is expected to benefit 10 lakh teachers and 60 lakh students across 1500 institutes over the next 18 months from local Microsoft Cloud.
• Developers, IT Professionals, ISVs and Partner ecosystem will see newer opportunities and innovative business models.  From providing cloud assessment to cloud roadmap creation; from writing new cloud ready applications to migrating existing workloads to cloud; locally delivered cloud services will help hosters, ISVs and partners scale their business using the cloud.

Building the Intelligent Cloud

As one of the largest cloud operators in the world, Microsoft has invested more than $15 billion in building a resilient cloud infrastructure and cloud services that deliver higher availability and security, while lowering overall costs. Microsoft cloud infrastructure currently includes more than 100 datacenters located in over 40 countries, and the company is continuing to rapidly build capacity to serve customers worldwide.

“Enterprise-grade performance, flexibility and hybrid capability, openness and trustworthiness are differentiating factors of the Microsoft cloud.  In addition, comprehensive higher-level business services enable new business possibilities for customers,” said Tyler Bryson, General Manager, Marketing and Operations, Microsoft India.

Microsoft’s Local Cloud Momentum

In the preparation to launch of cloud services from local datacenters, Microsoft created a special private preview program to allow early customers a preview into using the new local cloud services.  This has seen significant interest from BFSI, government departments and organizations, ISVs, ecommerce organizations and startups with participation from over125 customers. Organizations such as Mahindra, , Robert Bosch, Honeywell, Kotak Life, Bajaj Finserve, Medi Assist, Fortis Healthcare, Narayana Health, AIIMS, , Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation, MIDC, TN ePDS, , Rediff, Meru Cabs, , Sony Corporation, Aspect Software, Gupshup Technologies, NanoBi Data and Analytics, Ideal Invent Technologies, and many leading Indian banks have been using Microsoft local cloud services under this private preview program.