Microsoft takes shot at Amazon as it wraps up UK cloud data centres

Microsoft has opened the doors on UK data centre facilities for local customers with a chip at Amazon.

The giant’s Azure and Office 365 services are being hosted as options at locations in London, Cardiff and Durham.

Dynamics CRM Online will be available from the UK data centres in the first half of next year.

Until now, UK users of Microsoft’s cloud services had to see their applications and data farmed out to Ireland and Amsterdam if they’d wanted to remain within Europe.

The on-shoring of hosting is designed to satisfy customers' needs for local data residency and replication for business continuity.

Microsoft branded itself the “first global provider” of what it called a “complete cloud” from UK data centres.

No names mentioned, but that was likely a shot at Amazon with AWS.

Nadella announced the UK setup after a similar commitment from AWS CTO Werner Vogels. The AWS plans is for late 2016/early 2017.

AWS is regarded as the leader in cloud services and has given Microsoft stiff competition; Azure is now rated by Gartner as a firm number two to AWS.

Chief executive Satya Nadella announced plans for UK presence in November 2015, at the company’s – now – annual Future Decoded event.

Announcing the opening of the new facilities on Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence was also named as a customer, using Office 365 and Azure. The department employs 250,000 staff.

Other who’ll use the new facilities include Aston Martin – an existing Microsoft Office 365 customer – Capita and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.®