New Canadian Data Centers Ensures Cloud Access For All

Microsoft announced last week that commercial cloud services will be available to Canadian customers on new local data centers in Canada coming in 2016. The previous lack of Canadian data centers meant many customers with rigorous data compliance needs were unable to host their data outside of Canada and therefore unable to deploy Azure or Office 365.

A primary roadblock to the adoption of these services has traditionally been accessibility of the Internet services and location of data. Now that data will remain in Canada and Internet speeds are in excess of 100MB, the cloud is definitely the future for many organizations. The advantages to choosing the cloud means organizations will not have to spend valuable capital investment dollars upfront to allow them to scale up infrastructure as their business grows.

“We are very excited about the arrival of Canadian data centers and have been asking Microsoft for this for a long time in order to better serve the needs of our clients,” according to Christian Roach, Vice President of Open Door Technology.

“Now every Canadian customer has the option of deploying Microsoft Cloud services and we couldn’t be more thrilled,” Mr. Roach said.

The local Alberta floods of June 2013 are an excellent example of how a cloud solution can add incredible value to an organization. Several clients of Open Door Technology were directly affected by the loss of power and access to their local business and servers. Other clients who were utilizing cloud services including for ERP and Office 365 simply continued their daily business, but from their kitchen table.

The data centers will be located in Toronto, ON and Quebec City, QC. Availability for Azure is expected in early 2016 with access for Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online to follow later in 2016. There are already more than 80,000 Canadian businesses using cloud-based email, Office 365, and CRM Online.