LinkedIn puts off plan to move data centre infrastructure to Azure

Microsoft-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn will not be relocating its data centre infrastructure to Azure, as per a CNBC report. To be sure, in 2019, Mohak Shroff, LinkedIn’s senior vice president of engineering said through a blog announced a ‘multi-year migration of all LinkedIn workloads to the public cloud’. This was done in a bid to scale the infrastructure and better cater to the growing membership of the platform. 

“Moving to Azure will give us access to a wide array of hardware and software innovations, and unprecedented global scale. This will position us to focus on areas where we can deliver unique value to our members and customers. The cloud holds the future for us and we are confident that Azure is the right platform to build on for years to come,” Shroff’s blog read.

Replying to TechCircle's email query, LinkedIn spokesperson responded, "We are using both Azure to complement our infrastructure needs and further investing in our data centers. This includes our running 100 employee-facing applications on Azure, leveraging Azure FrontDoor and ongoing work to consolidate our datacenter locations that are currently spread across multiple buildings under a single roof. Azure has been crucial to support and scale collaboration and productivity for our teams and to deliver value to our members.”

In November, LinkedIn showcased a slew of artificial intelligence-based enhancements and features for its premium members, around the same time it breached the 1 billion user mark. The personalisation features are rolled out to a select group of premium subscribers in upskilling, job search, and networking. 

Earlier in June, LinkedIn unveiled a new AI feature that generates a first draft for users after they share at least 30 words describing what they want to say. Also, the platform introduced an AI-generated Copy Suggestions tool that uses generative AI to create high-performing intro text and headlines for ad creative professionals by leveraging data from an advertiser's LinkedIn Page.