Microsoft Is Finally Opening Two Azure Data Centres In Australia Next Week

It has been a long and frustrating 18-month wait, but it’s finally over. Microsoft is switching on its first Australian Azure data centres in Melbourne and Sydney next week, and it’s one particular cloud computing development that could mean good things for the Australian PC- and Xbox-using public.

Data centre image via Shutterstock

Azure is a big part of Microsoft’s company strategy, both for businesses and the average user, using the grunt of distributed cloud computing to add features to Microsoft-backed products — like the AI and physics in Titanfall, for example. Having some Australian locations and local server power will come in handy in the years to come.

The local data centre launch has obvious positive implications for Microsoft’s Australian Xbox One owners, who should experience generally lower pings for online gaming in future Azure-enabled and Xbox Live games. This was a big point of annoying before the launch of Titanfall earlier this year, where Aussie gamers on both PC and Xbox One defaulted to an international Azure connection in Hong Kong and Singapore — with the resulting laggy experience — before Respawn Entertainment and EA stepped in with dedicated local non-Azure hosting.

Lifehacker has all the details on the Sydney and Melbourne data centres, including a timeline of the developments since the US tech giant’s initial announcement in May 2013. [Lifehacker]