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Microsoft made Windows Azure generally available in Japan East and Japan West on February 25, 2014. Today, those regions are identified as japaneast (Tokyo/Saitama) and japanwest (Osaka). Microsoft lists them as a paired region set, but support for a particular Azure service, availability zones, and cross-region recovery depends on that service.
When did Azure become available in Japan?
Microsoft announced general availability of Windows Azure in Japan East, in Saitama Prefecture, and Japan West, in Osaka Prefecture, on February 25, 2014. The announcement described the launch as taking place later that Tuesday. The service was then branded Windows Azure; it is now known as Microsoft Azure.
Where are the two regions?
| Azure region | Location listed by Microsoft | Region identifier | Paired region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japan East | Tokyo/Saitama | japaneast |
Japan West |
| Japan West | Osaka | japanwest |
Japan East |
These are Azure region locations, not guarantees that every resource is physically placed at a particular address within a prefecture. Workload placement and data handling depend on the Azure service and its configuration.
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What does the Japan East–Japan West pairing mean?
Microsoft describes paired regions as geographically separated locations—typically hundreds of kilometers apart—that can support long-distance disaster recovery within a geography. For a Japanese workload, the pair offers the option to design recovery between two locations in Japan. Pairing alone does not replicate data, fail over an application, or guarantee that a service will keep all primary and replicated data in Japan. Those behaviors depend on the service’s replication, backup, and residency terms and on how the workload is configured.
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Check these factors for a specific workload
- Residency: Confirm where the service stores primary data, backups, and replicas, and whether the selected configuration keeps them in Japan.
- Recovery: Verify that the service supports replication or failover between Japan East and Japan West; plan and test the recovery process separately.
- Availability zones: Confirm zone support for the specific service and region. A region’s zone capability does not mean every Azure service there supports zones.
- Network design: Choose placement based on where users and dependent systems are, and account for inter-region connectivity and traffic.
- Coverage and cost: Check the current service-by-region listing and pricing for the exact service, SKU, and release stage.
Do both Japanese regions support availability zones?
Microsoft’s region listing marks both Japan East and Japan West as supporting availability zones. That is a regional capability, not a blanket promise of zone support across Azure. Check the current documentation for the individual service and deployment before relying on zones for resilience.
Which Azure services are available in Japan West?
There is no single permanent answer for every service: availability can vary by product, SKU, and release stage. Use Microsoft’s current product-by-region availability information to verify a named workload rather than assuming that a service available in Japan East is also available in Japan West.
Examples of later expansion
- Microsoft Japan reported on November 24, 2021, that Azure VMware Solution became generally available in Japan West, adding a second Japanese site alongside Japan East.
- On February 7, 2025, Microsoft’s Japan blog reported that Japan West became the second Japanese region from which customers could deploy Windows 365 Cloud PCs, alongside Japan East.
What the 2014 market estimate means
Microsoft’s 2014 launch post cited an IDC estimate of approximately $1.6 billion for Japan’s cloud-market forecast. That is a historical forecast cited at launch, not a current market-size figure.
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