Blog Post

Microsoft Entra Blog
2 MIN READ

Announcing a New Azure AD, part of Microsoft Entra, region in Japan

ShobhitSahay's avatar
ShobhitSahay
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Oct 14, 2022

As public and private organizations continue to grow their cloud presence to improve workflows, reduce inefficiencies, and empower employees, there's an increased concern about data residency, privacy, compliance, and security. Microsoft is committed to addressing these concerns for all organizations with a full suite of offerings, including more than 50 that are country or regional specific.   

 

Today we're delighted to announce that starting in October 2022, Microsoft customers in Japan can access Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), part of Microsoft Entra, features through our infrastructure in Japan. This replaces the system where the Azure AD data of customers based out of Japan was stored in other global regions. With over 500 million monthly active users, 500,000 customers, and 45 billion daily authentications, Azure AD enables organizations and individuals across the globe to achieve more by addressing their key security and privacy requirements. Microsoft’s Identity and Access Management solutions powered by a Zero Trust framework provide a secure platform for businesses and individuals alike to accomplish their goals. 

 

Beginning in October 2022, authentication, core directory storage, and premium features storage will be available from Japan, allowing all new customers to store their Azure AD data in Japan. Authentication requests originating from Japan will also be processed and handled in Japan (learn more at Customer data storage for Japan customers - Azure AD | Microsoft Docs). This is particularly important in industries such as healthcare, financial services, and government, as it will assist with their local regulatory requirements while offering another level of trust and flexibility. 

 

For existing customers, we will continue to store their Azure AD data in its current location. In the future, we'll be announcing our strategy to migrate that Azure AD data into Japan. Azure AD data storage in Japan is currently included without any additional charges.  

 

With this launch of a dedicated Japan region for Identity, Microsoft is reinforcing our commitment to satisfying the requirements of our growing customer base’s evolving privacy, resiliency, and region-specific data requirements. Microsoft already has more regions than any other cloud provider with 60+ announced datacenter regions, with Azure available in over 140 countries. Azure has the most comprehensive compliance coverage of any cloud service provider with more than 100 compliance offerings. 

 

With this update, we look forward to helping customers in Japan further accelerate their digital transformation. Our continued focus on our trusted cloud principles and leadership in compliance provides all our customers across the globe with the necessary security foundation to achieve compliance for their own applications. 

 

 

Learn more about Microsoft identity: 

Updated Oct 11, 2022
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Microsoft Identity Platform
  • Smiki's avatar
    Smiki
    Iron Contributor
    Oct 15, 2022

    Just Amazing; also when it comes to things like update «EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud» and even for countries as Norway with some laws or regulations against very specific data not being stored outside our boarders. Just love it because of those who just try to go backwards in time, but  Azure AD is built to support no limits and no boarders in the clouds and now you can if you want set some limits. Even though they might soon come to the different solutions and conclusions; when times go by and laws are more modified to support the wider and for the law makers right now the unseen benefits.

    When everything else is moved to the clouds and the local office data rooms are closed, you might find those GDPR or Schrems2 data stored in old non-updated and unprotected machines or usb storage in the common areas and sometimes controlled by the national HR boss in the company; unprotected and easy to walk away with: not so safe compared with the clouds.

     

    BTW:

    I have shown in the Azure AD B2C environment; our identity playground, the benefit of an extensible work flow. Where such data can be protected against M(an)I(n)T(he)M(idle) or even from your cloud provider, the ability to encrypt data not only in the cloud, but also in different cloud or OnPrem systems. Even the ability to control MFA factors OnPrem or even better the ability to use OneCloudSecureIdentity to several OnPrem, IM’s, IDP’s or different other cloud Identities or to control a more natural human life time, where we also support earlier stages where parents need insight into their children’s digital identities and the other side where children’s help the parents when they become to old to managed everything on their own. The natural life cycle also ends at least as long as we haven’t solved the aging process; we aren’t yet as hydra:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.14322

    It’s quite easy to design Identity systems, but not making an ideal one for every situation and for any systems.  Especially when we add all the different attempts to it and make it far more difficult to do identity theft; when we add biometric, different MFA factores, CAE and proper Conditional Access concept. It’s also a lot of those crypto coins being lost because of bad designs. A proper O(n)B(ehalf)O(f) design might also be used to support the old fortresses OnPrem where it’s lot of limitations also taken when we hadn’t any clouds or cloud identities. We have just started Zero Trust Architecture concepts and it will evolve to something far better in the future where we move from the static to a far more dynamic secure world. When we do redesign we seldom get things worse; since we improve and use our improved insight to make it far better. The work Sue Bohn teams are doing is amazing and the work Robin Goldstein teams do to improve external identities in the main tenant is extremely important for the future possibilities. To our friends in the identity team keep the good work going; it’s just amazing the possibilities to come if we do it proper together: “If you want to go fast  go alone, if you want to go far go together”.