
Microsoft to Deliver Microsoft Cloud from Datacenters in Africa - el_duderino
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/05/18/microsoft-deliver-microsoft-cloud-datacenters-africa/
======
madiathomas
I am hosting my SaaS site using Google Cloud. All my clients are based in SA.
I chose Google Cloud after experiencing very bad service from Azure. I won't
go back to Azure, even if they build the datacenter behind my yard. I love the
pricing and simplicity of Google Cloud. Ironically, my site is on Microsoft
.NET stack, but I still don't trust Microsoft with hosting my site.

I hope Google and AWS will follow suite and build datacenter in SA.

~~~
boulos
Cool! Luckily, we have a POP in Johannesburg and it's "only" 160ms from there
to London/Paris along our backbone (then another handful to europe-west1 in
Belgium). Do you have good telemetry on the kind of latency your customers on
seeing?

Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud.

~~~
madiathomas
I haven't checked. All I know is that they are happy. I will check and report
back.

------
niftich
A month ago on the thread about AWS opening up a region in Sweden, a
discussion ensued [1] about the lack of major cloud provider datacenters in
Africa.

I wrote [2] that a good site in Africa would be challenging, because one would
have to " _pick a spot touched by more than one thick pipe, in jurisdiction
known for political and civic stability and a regime with rough compatibility
to the ideology and national security apparatus of western allies -- their
home base and primary source of customers; receptive and promoting of foreign
investment, and having access to multiple reliable, redundant power sources
from which to draw energy._ "

While South Africa ranks high on stability and ideological compatibility, and
reasonably on fiber [3], my understanding was that reliable and _redundant_
utility power supply is a significant issue [4][5]. I'd be curious to see
whether co-generation will be used to overcome these limitations.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14031565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14031565)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14035251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14035251)
[3]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Cable_ma...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Cable_map18.svg)
[4] [http://www.fin24.com/Economy/SA-fears-dark-days-ahead-as-
pow...](http://www.fin24.com/Economy/SA-fears-dark-days-ahead-as-power-cuts-
bite-20141210) [4]
[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/crippling-...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/crippling-
blackouts-paralyse-south-africa-150312044353795.html) [5]
[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/crippling-...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/crippling-
blackouts-paralyse-south-africa-150312044353795.html)

~~~
madiathomas
SA experienced power challenges few years back, but those issues are long
gone. I haven't experienced any power cuts in over a year now.

~~~
danw3
Is it just me or is one year a pretty low bar to set for granting a problem
the title of "long gone"?

~~~
nevi-me
Given the context of what caused those power issues: \- lack of maintenance
(not non-existence of maintenance) for almost 2 decades \- the electrification
of more homes without bringing on additional capacity \- poor/subpar
management of the sole power producer

A year or so is fine because those issues have been resolved by: \- a slower
economy (I'm putting this here because we shot ourselves on the foot) \- more
generational power coming in \- the rise of independent power-producers.

So there should be stability from a power generation perspective.

It's "long gone" because depending on which part of society you come from, you
might have gone a few years without experiencing load-based power issues.

In general the power issues still exist once you step out of the suburbs or
metros, but then again the DCs will likely be hosted there, or MS will enter
into a power agreement that gives them preference over the rest of the average
consumer.

I'm just glad that we'll have Azure DCs as a start, and hope Google and Amazon
follow suit if MS succeeds.

------
staticelf
Cool. From what I know Africa is like the only continent so far without any
datacenters from the major players. Correct me if I am wrong.

Glad to see things change and a small step into a more connected and peaceful
world.

~~~
wjoe
Yep. We've had to do some work for clients in Africa in my job. One we did in
Morocco was fine from EU data centers on AWS, but South Africa has been very
difficult to serve with acceptable latency from any data centre we've tried.

We're 90% AWS here, but would probably use Azure for those clients if they had
a data centre in that region.

~~~
cyxxon
UIh, any specific issues? My company will be rolling out SAP from Germany to
ZA soonish, and so far we have not yet had a chance to actually really test
the connection. Self-hosted data center here, so probably not that comparable.
Just overall crappy connection?

~~~
wjoe
My company handles live video streaming, so slow speeds and high latency tends
to result in a lot of buffering. You're looking at about 200ms latency minimum
from Europe to South Africa, and when you need to download a ~2MB video chunk
in 2000ms, it's pretty hard to get a reliable stream, especially when you add
in generally slower/less reliable connections along the route.

It can be mitigated somewhat by reducing the quality of the video and using
CDNs, but even edge nodes are scarce in that are of the world.

I imagine it would be fine for normal applications, aside from being a little
slower, but video is a challenge.

~~~
cyxxon
Thanks. We do not serve video, so it is indeed not that comparable. But we do
have hosted web applications (SAP CRM), and syncing of offline applications
for field staff (technicians) (and that can be quite a lot of data). It seems
that our use cases mean either low latency and low bandwidth (non-technical
users and their web apps, where "stuff is broken" if it is slow, but they
might be already used to that from other areas of their online lifes) OR any
latency and high bandwidth (sync doesn't really care if the packages come in
with ultra low latency, as long as it syncs). Might work out indeed.

------
outside1234
What's hilarious is that Amazon's S3 service is literally developed in Cape
Town. Amazing that they weren't first with this.

~~~
matharmin
As far as I know it's EC2 that's developed in Cape Town, not S3. Your point is
still valid though.

------
John23832
I was just in a comment thread here where someone describe Africa as "a
shithole" (their exact words ) when it came to hosting data centers. Glad to
see that the people actual making decisions in tech have some rational
ability.

------
mozey
I've never seriously considered using Azure, I'm quite happy with AWS. Problem
is the closest zone to South Africa is EU. This might make me consider using
Azure. I hope Amazon has similar plans in the works.

~~~
aswanson
The thing that Azure has over AWS, imo, is the integration it has with Visual
Studio.

------
skc
South Africa is pretty much the only country where this was ever going to be
possible.

Perhaps Rwanda as well.

Uninterrupted power is a major challenge here on the continent.

~~~
pizzetta
Maybe Ghana as well or even Egypt.

~~~
Analemma_
I think the parent is too pessimistic. You are right, and Nigeria and Kenya
would be acceptable choices too.

------
jorangreef
Are these cloud services going to be served from newly built 100% Microsoft
datacenters or servers colocated with Hetzner South Africa (Cape Town and
Joburg)?

~~~
rainbowmverse
I don't know anything about the technicals, politics, and economics of this
kind of thing. What's the difference between the two setups?

------
cmurf
I'm curious what the median salary is in these data centers.

------
jksmith
MSFT is starting to get it. Many startups are being funded for stupid projects
that target the US and are based in SF. The future belongs to markets like
Africa and S. America. They currently take about 6% each of world's total
software market.

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TotallyHuman
This must increase the cooling demands a lot.

------
throwme_1980
bad idea ....

------
ramshanker
No developer goes back to higher latency once you have tasted the smaller one
!

------
germtone
Africa eh? i feel so safe now.

(1)
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Worldwid...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Worldwide_NSA_signals_intelligence.jpg)

(2)
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Xkeyscor...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Xkeyscore-
worldmap.jpg)

