Microsoft Cloud expands in Asia with Microsoft Azure available from Korea

Feb 21, 2017 – SEOUL, South Korea – Today, Microsoft announced a major milestone to enable the digital transformation of customers with the general availability of Microsoft Azure from new Microsoft Cloud regions in Korea. The complete, intelligent, Microsoft Cloud is delivering Azure’s leading collection of integrated cloud services, and will deliver Microsoft’s industry-leading collaboration and productivity services, Office 365, generally available in Q2 of 2017.

The new regions become part of one the world’s largest cloud infrastructures, backed by billions of dollars invested in building a highly secure, scalable, available, and sustainable cloud. The two Azure regions in Korea are part of 13 regions in Asia, and 38 Azure regions announced across the globe – more than any other major cloud provider. Combined with the global footprint, the Azure regions in Korea will help organizations bring their services and applications closer to customers around the world.

Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President, Azure Networking, Microsoft Corp

“People and organizations across the globe are increasingly powered by the cloud, which is fueling innovation on every corner of the planet,” said Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President, Azure Networking, Microsoft Corp. “The geographic expansion of Azure enables our customers to achieve higher performance and supports their requirements and preferences regarding data location to meet the growing demand for an intelligent, global, enterprise-ready cloud.”

The new Azure regions, located in Seoul and Busan, deliver world-class reliability and performance combined with local data residency. This includes replication of data in multiple regions across Korea, giving customers reliable data protection for business continuity in both pure cloud and hybrid scenarios.

Al Koh, CEO, Microsoft Korea

“Microsoft recently conducted a Digital Transformation Study in Asia which shows only 18% of businesses leaders surveyed in Korea have a full digital strategy in place.  By contrast, 79% agree that every organization needs to be a digital business to enable growth in the future, and 76% regard cloud computing as essential in their digital transformation strategy,” said Al Koh, CEO, Microsoft Korea. “Hundreds of organizations have signed up to use these new Azure regions to gain access to a comprehensive and complete set of cloud services to empower their digital transformation and accelerate local innovation.”

This expansion is part of Microsoft’s commitment to empower customers through cloud computing and is expected to accelerate cloud adoption across multiple industries including manufacturing, telecommunications, transportation, healthcare, and gaming.

Woo Hyun Shim, Professor, Asan Medical Center, said, “Asan Medical Center is organizing a new collaboration platform, Health Innovation Big Data Center, using medical data which includes millions of anonymized clinical notes. We’re aiming to solve challenges and create opportunities for the industry and the academic community through the analysis of medical data. I believe this is the first use of big data by a large hospital in Korea, and Microsoft’s leadership in hybrid cloud makes them the best partner for us.”

Ethan Choi, Lead Game Programmer, Red Sahara Studio said, “The cloud is essential for small game studios who are running a global service like us. Thanks to the cloud, we’ve reduced the resources needed for system engineering so we can focus more on game development and we’ve also leveraged Microsoft Azure to push large-scale updates. We’re embracing the cloud and plan to deploy our upcoming game, Immortal Invasion, on Azure.”

The Azure regions in Korea feature the same industry-leading levels of security, privacy, compliance, and transparency that define Microsoft’s trusted cloud globally. Microsoft takes a holistic approach to both security and privacy, building both into all Microsoft products & services from design to delivery. The Microsoft Cloud also has the most comprehensive compliance coverage of any cloud service provider with more than 50 compliance certification offering, and serves high profile customers across the globe including the Ministry of Defence in the United Kingdom.

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