Fujitsu, Microsoft to launch Azure cloud

First data centre to be hosted in Japan with charges starting from 6 cents an hour.

Microsoft and Fujitsu expect to launch a global Azure-based cloud service by this August. 

The Global Cloud Platform service, dubbed “FGCP/A5”, will be hosted in one of Fujitsu’s Japanese datacentres, and will be the first “production release” of the Windows Azure platform appliance by Fujitsu. 

Microsoft aims to have secured 400 enterprise companies, 5000 small and medium enterprises and ISVs within five years of the platform’s launch, Microsoft said in a statement. 

The service will be available from 5 Japanese Yen (AU 6 cents) per hour for one “extra small” Windows Azure instance, and promises another Azure option for Australian cloud buyers. 

Microsoft began offering Australian customers access to its Azure cloud computing services from data centres in Singapore and Hong Kong in April.

Dell, HP and eBay had also been named as Microsoft partners launching their own Azure platform appliances when Microsoft announced its plans last July.

There was no mention of Azure, however, in a leak of HP's cloud computing roadmap posted on LinkedIn. 

Development languages supported by Fujitsu's platform include .NET, Java and PHP,  according to Microsoft. 

The package consists of compute, storage, Microsoft SQL Azure and Windows Azure AppFabric technologies such as Service Bus and Access Control Service. 

Pointing to Fujitsu’s data centre reliability, Microsoft noted that the data centre which will support FGCP/A5 has had 14 years of uninterrupted operations. 

The Fujitsu service promises application monitoring, logs and process automation, while Fujitsu’s middleware products will aid the deployment of Java or COBOL applications.