Microsoft Links Azure to Africa

Undersea cable operator Seacom has partnered with software giant Microsoft, providing Ethernet links between Seacom's IT infrastructure and Microsoft's Azure and Office365 data centres around the world.

Azure does not have a data centre on the African continent and local users connect to it via Microsoft's data centres around the world.

Seacom is now a Microsoft ExpressRoute partner, and the companies believe the deal will help African organisations that are migrating some or all of their business applications and IT infrastructure to the cloud with faster and reliable connectivity with Microsoft's Azure platform.

Microsoft Azure, formerly known as Windows Azure, is Microsoft's public cloud computing platform providing a range of cloud services, including those for compute, analytics, storage and networking. Users can pick and choose from these services to develop and scale new applications, or run existing applications, in the public cloud.

It is widely considered both a platform-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service offering.

However, Azure does not have a data centre on the African continent but local users connect to it via Microsoft's data centres around the world.

Seacom notes ExpressRoute connections don't go over the public Internet. It explains they offer more reliability, faster speeds, lower latencies and higher security than typical public Internet connections.

"Since Microsoft does not yet have Azure data centres in Africa, a dedicated, high-quality connection to Azure services hosted in Europe or other parts of the world can ensure a smoother, faster experience for the end-user," the undersea cable operator says.

Seacom owns and operates a high-capacity international network consisting of multiple submarine cable systems connecting Africa to Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Seacom's submarine and terrestrial networks stretch across 17 000km.

"By offering our customers dedicated links to the Azure infrastructure, we will help them enjoy high throughput and fast latencies so they can benefit from the scale and economics of the public cloud without having to compromise on network performance," says Robert Marston, ‎global head of product at Seacom.

"Because we can control the infrastructure from the last kilometre of the fibre to our many points of presence in the world's largest Internet traffic exchange points, we can ensure our clients use Azure as naturally as if it was an extension of their own IT infrastructure."