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Windows Azure Goes Coast-To-Coast
The new datacenters currently support Azure Compute and Storage services.
Microsoft has "significantly" expanded its Windows Azure presence to both U.S. coasts, the company stated on a blog.
Previously, the datacenters for its cloud-based IT and development platform were located in the central part of the country.
Last week, Microsoft's Cameron Rogers made the announcement in the Windows Azure blog. According to Rogers, Microsoft has added "East US" and "West US" datacenter options to the Azure infrastructure, expanding its coverage in the United States beyond the South Central (San Antonio, TX) and North Central (Chicago, IL) facilities. Microsoft did not identify where the new datacenters are located.
Veteran Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley offered a slide from Microsoft's fiscal-year 2010 that shows possible locations.
The new datacenters currently support Azure Compute and Storage services. SQL Azure coverage is expected to arrive "in the coming months," according to Microsoft's announcement. Current customers of Windows Azure, which is Microsoft's platform-as-a-service cloud-based operating system, can see the added datacenter coverage via the Microsoft's Windows Azure Management Portal.
Those who work with datacenters point out that location only is important with respect to network latency and its potential effects on a Web application housed in the Internet cloud. Beyond those technical details, datacenter location is not so important in the United States because company data isn't restricted by regulations to a particular state or region. The U.S. government may have the legal authority to tap that corporate data without notice, although Microsoft's legal counsel has argued in a blog post that this authority under the U.S.A. Patriot Act is "negligible."
The situation is different across European Union countries, which may require that companies store their data within the country of origin or have other legal restrictions that service providers must observe. The European Commission announced in January that it was working to streamline data protection rules across EU countries to a single set of rules. At present, the regulations vary country to country.
For organizations looking to check how network latency may affect their Windows Azure apps, Microsoft describes how to test for it in this blog post.
Microsoft also rolled out a new "trust center" portal last week for Windows Azure that provides resources for organizations looking for policy information associated with the service. The portal houses details about Microsoft's policies with regard to legal compliance, security and privacy issues. It also has some information about Microsoft's contractual compliance in the EU as a service provider.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.