Data centers are the life blood of the Internet. Some of the top tech companies have them worldwide to not only store but also facilitate their daily operations for the millions of users signed up to their products. Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, IBM, and more have them spread across the globe. Microsoft – the very one that makes the world’s most popular desktop/laptop operating system and the Office suite that you use at work/home – is about to open a major data center in Qatar.
The State of Qatar’s Cabinet has approved the establishment of an Microsoft global data center in the country, that will be knwon as the “Azure Cloud Computing”. Source of this announcement came from the official Twitter account of the Qatar News Agency, then picked up by CNBC and Reuters.
The Cabinet also approved the establishment of a global data center for Microsoft in Qatar "Azure Cloud Computing." #QNA
— Qatar News Agency (@QNAEnglish) January 2, 2019
Azure for the Middle East
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. It’s also the same platform that powers their Dynamics 365 and the popular Office 365 suite.
Microsoft’s foray into the cloud has paid big dividends with their cloud-centric approach to their products as they challenge Amazon’s dominance; the latter is planning to open their data centers in Bahrain sometime in 2019. Qatar becomes the second country to have one after their announcement in March 2018 for two of these data centers in the UAE.
Microsoft already operates an Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) in Qatar (there’s only three of them in the Middle East region), and the new Azure Cloud Computing center will give them a bigger footprint in the country and the wider Middle East region’s push for digitization.
Everything from software/platform/infrastructure as a service while supporting many different programming languages, tools and frameworks (both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems) will be available for users in Qatar and the Middle East powered by Azure. You can get a start using Azure by signing up to a free account.
Image credit: Microsoft Press room
