Microsoft activates Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online on local datacentres

Microsoft Australia's Pip Marlow

To help master data sovereignty concerns, Microsoft A/NZ has activated Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online on local datacentres.

The locally hosted services will be delivered from two existing datacentres in NSW and Victoria. This comes on the back of its local Azure services launched in October last year.

“The local services will provide even faster performance, offer geo-redundant back-up and help customers address data residency considerations, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, education, government and financial services,” Microsoft managing director, Pip Marlow, said in her blog.

Office 365 has also completed a formal security assessment for unclassified sensitive government data via Australian Government’s Independent Registered Assessors Program (IRAP).

Marlow said Office 365 was the first cloud productivity service to be able to provide this level of assurance in Australia. This builds on the recent assessment of Microsoft Azure under the same scheme and a similar IRAP assessment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is also underway.

Marlow said Office 365 and its tools such as Yammer, OneDrive, SharePoint, Lync and Office 365 Video were helping companies meet their changing requirements and enhance their business.

An example of this was real estate company, Harcourts, which implemented Office 365 to enable them to adapt to their clients changing expectations and support its international expansion. Harcourts worked with Microsoft partner, CloudFirst, which developed a cloud platform called Franchise First that helps businesses expand their operations.

CloudFirst is in the process of taking Harcourts from 100 users to nearly 2400 users by the end of June.