• India South Central has three Availability Zones and can host eligible Microsoft Cloud services and workloads from Hyderabad
  • HDFC Bank plans to pair Hyderabad with Central India for disaster recovery, while Microsoft says more services will be added over time

The fact

Microsoft has made its India South Central cloud region in Hyderabad generally available. The region has three Availability Zones and is Microsoft’s fourth cloud region in India, alongside Central India in Pune, South India in Chennai and West India in Mumbai. Customers can now run eligible Microsoft Cloud services and workloads from Hyderabad, with additional services due to be added over time.

Adani Group, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Bank and PB Pay used the region during early access. HDFC Bank said it plans to use Hyderabad alongside its existing Central India footprint for disaster recovery and business continuity. Microsoft first announced plans for the Hyderabad region in 2022.

The assessment

With Hyderabad live, Azure customers in India can now split workloads across another domestic region. For organisations that keep production and recovery systems in separate locations, this adds another option without moving those workloads outside the country. HDFC Bank’s plan to pair Hyderabad with Central India gives one example of how the region may be used.

That choice still depends on which Azure services are available in Hyderabad. A recovery setup only works if the databases, networking, security and other services an application relies on are supported in both locations. Microsoft says more services will be added over time, so some workloads may need to remain elsewhere until the required services are available. For BTW readers, Hyderabad gives infrastructure teams more flexibility when deciding where workloads run and where backup systems sit within India.

What to watch

Microsoft’s service roll-out in India South Central is the next thing to follow. Production migrations by banks and other large enterprises, especially deployments that pair Hyderabad with another Indian Azure region for disaster recovery, would give a clearer picture of how customers are using the new capacity.