Microsoft is in the process of moving all Office 365 services over to Microsoft data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. The move has already been made for OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange services. The rest of the Office 365 services are to follow suit soon.

This has been done to help SA customers meet with compliancy laws and reduce latency that has occurred when SA clients connect to data centres in Ireland.

For Office 365 users, this means their core data will reside in the confines of the South African border with added layers of data privacy and reliability.

New SA customers will automatically have their data stored in local data centres, while existing SA customers will have six months to choose whether to keep their data where it is or join the Office 365 Move Program. Choosing to move will mean Microsoft moving your data over to local data centres in their own time, within the next two years.

Microsoft has ensured their customers that whether they keep their data where it is or whether they move it to local data centres, their experience will remain the same and the process will be seamless. There is also no cost to move data over to local data centres for O365 customers.

Choose the move

Barry Kemp, Head of Managed Services at Vox, advises SA customers to move their data to local data centres. “The quicker you make the move, the quicker you’ll get reduced latency when using Office 365 products and services,” says Kemp.

After two years, all Office 365 users will be moved over to local data centres automatically. “It’s not a case of if you should make the move, it’s a case of when. The sooner the better. Not only for latency, but to also to comply with POPI laws,” adds Kemp.

Making the move involves logging onto your Microsoft portal and clicking “Move”. Microsoft will take it from there.

“Another positive that has come out of Microsoft having local data centres in SA is that government will be able to use Office 365 in their organisations,” says Kemp.

Sign up for Office 365 with Vox and enable your employees to work from anywhere on any device, to collaborate easily with team members on specific projects, find organisation resources, manage content and share ideas all within a single integrated system. Office 365 is available on a monthly subscription so that you can reduce your business’ capital expenditure.