Cloud services
Honest advice on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, AWS and Azure for UAE companies: where your data can be stored, how to move without losing email or files, and how to plan for a region outage.
For most businesses in Dubai, “the cloud” already means two or three services: a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace subscription for email and files, perhaps a website on managed hosting, and sometimes an application running on AWS or Azure. Our cloud services help UAE companies make those choices deliberately, understand where their data actually sits, and move between platforms without losing a mailbox along the way.
This is part of our IT services. Day to day administration after a move is covered by IT support.
Data residency
Data location is one of the first questions larger clients and regulators ask. The options differ a lot between providers, and they change, so this summary comes from each provider’s own pages.
| Platform | UAE related options, per the provider | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 | The United Arab Emirates is one of Microsoft’s Local Region Geographies for Microsoft 365 data at rest | Tenants with the UAE as default geography can buy the Advanced Data Residency add on for further commitments on services in scope |
| Microsoft Azure | UAE North and UAE Central appear in Microsoft’s list of Azure regions | Service availability varies by region, so each service needs checking |
| Google Workspace | Data region choices are the United States, Europe, or no preference | Only certain editions support data regions, and there is no UAE option |
| AWS | AWS opened its Middle East (UAE) Region, me-central-1, with three Availability Zones | See the region outage section below before relying on a single region |
Resilience
Keeping data in the country can be a sound choice. It does not remove the need to plan for that region being unavailable. AWS’s public Health Dashboard, checked in September 2026, still carried an update dated 30 April 2026 saying the Middle East (UAE) Region had suffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle East and could not reliably support customer applications. AWS recommended that customers migrate accessible resources to other Regions and restore inaccessible ones from remote backups, and said restoration was expected to take several months.
That is a clear example of why we plan every cloud workload with two questions answered in writing: where does the live system run, and where is a copy that survives if that location fails? The answer has to respect any data location duties you have, which is why the legal question comes first.
Choosing a platform
Both are capable. The better choice depends on your clients, your data location needs and the way your team already works.
Firms whose clients exchange Word and Excel files with tracked changes all day, businesses that need data at rest in the UAE, and teams that already meet larger clients on Microsoft Teams.
Teams that collaborate live in shared documents, work mostly in the browser and on Android or Chromebooks, and have no requirement to store data in the UAE, given its data region choices are the US or Europe.
Migration planning
Most migration problems come from preparation that was skipped, not from the tools. We write the plan first and share it before anything moves.
Every mailbox, shared mailbox, alias, distribution list, shared drive, and every service that sends email as your domain.
Platform, licences, data location, and what will be archived rather than moved.
Plan the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC changes and when they happen, so mail keeps flowing and stays authenticated. Our cyber security work covers those records in more depth.
Move a small group first, find the surprises, and fix the process.
Copy mail, calendars and files, switch mail routing, then run a final sync.
Set up phones and desktop apps, check shared access, and close the old subscription only once nothing is missing.
Hosting
Cloud infrastructure makes sense for custom applications, integrations and sites with unusual traffic patterns. It also brings responsibilities that managed hosting hides: patching servers, watching costs, setting up backups and controlling who can change what. We help you decide whether that trade is worth it, then set up the account structure, access controls and backups properly.
Costs deserve the same attention as security. Cloud bills grow quietly through forgotten test servers, oversized databases and storage nobody deletes. For every account we set up, we switch on billing alerts sent to someone in your finance team, label resources by project, and review what is running at each periodic check, so you are never surprised by a charge for something no one remembers creating.
Applications themselves are built by our website development and mobile app development teams, and kept up to date through website maintenance.
From the blog
Straight answers
For many private businesses there is no blanket rule, but contracts, sector regulators and the Personal Data Protection Law's cross border transfer requirements can all create one. Confirm your obligations with a lawyer, then we design the setup to meet them.
Only if there is a clear reason, such as data location needs, the apps your clients use, or licence overlap. Migrations cost staff time, so we set out the trade offs in writing before recommending one.
We do not claim any cloud partner tier. We work with the standard admin tools and documentation each provider publishes, and you buy subscriptions in your own name.
We can plan and set up hosting for a site or app, and our web team builds on it. For a typical small business website, simpler managed hosting is often enough, and we will say so.
It depends on the number of mailboxes, the volume of files and how much preparation your team can do. The plan and its stages are set out in the proposal after we have seen your current setup.
Sources
Fixed price, in writing
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