Microsoft Brings Azure Backup And Site Recovery To UK Data Centres

Microsoft Azure customers in the UK now have access to Azure Backup and Site Recovery services delivered via the company’s data centres in the UK.

Azure Backup protects data on-premises and online, while Site Recovery allows customers to replicate their on-premise physical servers in the cloud, providing a fall back option if their primary servers fail.

The capabilities give businesses and organisations based in the UK a reliable way to protect their most important files ahead of the strict global data protection regulations (GDPR) set to be introduced next year.

Microsoft Azure

Azure Backup customers only ever pay for the storage they use and have the choice of: Locally redundant storage, which creates three data copies in a paired data centre in the same region, or geo-redundant storage, which replicates the data to a secondary region hundreds of miles away from the primary location.

Data encryption ensures the secure transmission and storage of data – with the encryption passphrase always stored locally – and there is no limit to the amount of data that customers can transfer.

Mark Smith, senior director of cloud and enterprise at Microsoft, said: “With Azure Backup and Site Recovery, Microsoft customers can be confident that their information is safe, secure and available whenever and wherever they need it.

“These features add to the fantastic services already being offered from Microsoft’s UK data centres, which are being utilised by the Government and other major organisations in this country because of the transparency, security and compliance they offer.”

Microsoft opened its UK data centres in September last year and has since introduced several new tools including the use of private internet connections to increase security for businesses in the region.

The company also recently announced impressive Q4 2016 results, where Azure revenue increased by a staggering 93 percent, after previously admitting that Brexit could impact its UK data centre expansion plans.

Quiz: The history, products and people of Microsoft