On June 2, tech industry leader Microsoft announced two new facilities in Canada, including a Toronto data center and a Quebec City data center, which will open in 2016. These will be the organization's first sites in Canada and will focus on commercial cloud offerings, connecting local customers to the company's Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online applications. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner stressed that the new facilities will allow more businesses to connect to the cloud.
"Cloud services level the playing field, especially for small and medium businesses," Turner said.
Microsoft's Azure program already has 17 global data center regions, including several U.S. data centers and East Asia data centers. The Canada data center may offer respite for the data sovereignty issue, wherein proponents believe that data stored within a certain country be governed by that nation's laws.
The announcement that Microsoft will be opening two Canada data centers comes after the company's May investment in undersea cables to connect global locations in a data center network. Hibernia Networks' new Express cable will allow Microsoft's North American data center infrastructure to connect with United Kingdom data centers and beyond.
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