Going Multi-cloud for Mother Earth
Azure Blob storage for all the wrong regions
Loo Loo Paper Parts is now saving the world. It began after Doug in Operations visited the Moncton Natural Health Cooperative on a Saturday afternoon last June, and on a whim, bought some mint and fresh tarragon, went home and sprinkled the spices over a bamboo paper towel spindle in his kitchen sink rinsing tray.
His kitchen was infused with a bouquet of mint and French tarragon. Doug stood completely still for eleven minutes. He missed three phone calls and 10 texts.
Doug biked to work on a Saturday, opened Google Sheets, and approved a new Loo Loo Paper Parts product line: Specialty bamboo spindles engineered for paper towels infused with mint and French tarragon, targeted at the European eco-conscious bathroom market.
The product is called Spindle de Provence. The tagline, which JJ wrote in fifteen minutes and which nobody has dared changed, is: Les Toilettes Méditation: Parce que Même les WC Méritent du Zen.
Spindle de Provence spindles have been accepted as an essential product and exhibit at the EU’s EU Greenwashing Gala and Convention 2026 in Paris. Four hundred exhibitors. Twelve thousand attendees. The Loo Loo Paper Parts booth is in Hall C, between a Norwegian composting startup for kitty litter and a company that makes biodegradable confetti in green and black.
The convention needs a shared digital asset repository
Marketing materials. Architect drawings of the spindle design. Product specification PDFs. And professional photographs of models wearing off-white French frocks meditating quietly.
Selena has been in contact with the convention co-ordinators. She has acquired the business card for the Norwegian composting startup for Dave. A present. And she had been contemplating the committee’s storage needs during the weekly marketing meeting with Raja and JJ.
Raja evaluated the options. The EU convention’s procurement system runs on Azure. The asset repository should also run on Azure. Azure Blob Storage - unlimited, durable, accessible, the same concept as S3 with different naming conventions and an interface Selena had never opened before.
JJ asked the question he had been holding since the meeting started. “Does this mean we are a multi cloud company now?”
Raja replied: “We are now doing our part in saving the world with multi-cloud and scents and that is fantastic.” JJ wrote multi-cloud on a blue Post-it note. JJ suddenly realized that he had been using scented Post-it notes for years.
Selena opened the Azure portal for the first time on Tuesday morning in the 10 o’clock meeting with Raja, JJ, and Bart
“It’s different,” she said. “Way more colourful.”
She set up the Azure storage account and selected Canada East - Quebec City, Quebec. Local storage for a Canadian manufacturer made sense. Bart was busy evaluating the current SLA for Azure Blob Storage.
The EU has a data residency requirement policy enforced by the convention’s Chief of Digital Security, Matteo Longie. All digital assets associated with exhibitors must be stored within the European Union. This requirement is in the exhibitor agreement on page seven. It is also in the security addendum on page three.
The asset repository went live in Quebec City at 2:47pm on a Wednesday. The marketing materials, architect drawings, product specifications, and models’ photographs were uploaded and accessible within the hour. From Canada.
Matteo Longie sent an email
Bart had been monitoring the Azure environment since the Blob Storage deployment. Bart was working through the Azure Secure Score recommendations methodically. Matteo Longie’s email arrived at Bart’s monitoring inbox at 9:14am Thursday. The email was in Italian, French, and English. The English portion read as follows:
“Dear Technical Responsible Person. We are finding that the Loo Loo Paper Parts digital assets are in Canada East - Quebec City, Quebec which is presently not part of the European Union. This is creating a situation of non-compliance with the convention digital security policy reference number DSP-2026-14 subsection C. Please to rectify before the convention opening which is in four days. Regards, Matteo Longie, Chief of Digital Security, EU Greenwashing Gala and Convention 2026.”
Bart migrated the repository
Bart read the email twice. Bart sent a new Slack message to #infrastructure-general.
“The Spindle de Provence asset repository is deployed in Canada East - Quebec City, Quebec. The EU Greenwashing Gala and Convention requires EU-region storage. This is a data residency violation under the convention’s DSP-2026-14 policy. I am migrating the repository to Azure West Europe now. ETA: forty minutes.”
New Azure storage account. Region: West Europe - Amsterdam. All assets copied. New endpoint URL generated. Old Canada East account scheduled for deletion. Forty-three minutes start to finish.
Bart sent Matteo Longie a three-paragraph email in English explaining the migration, the new endpoint, and the steps Loo Loo Paper Parts had taken to ensure ongoing compliance with DSP-2026-14 subsection C. Matteo Longie replied four minutes later. The reply was in French.
Selena was already in Paris
JJ had approved the Europe trip two weeks earlier, after the S3 incident, in a moment of administrative goodwill that JJ himself did not fully understand.
Matteo Longie had heard from the Hall C facilities manager, who had been unable to access the Spindle de Provence marketing materials. Matteo Longie found Selena at 2:15pm near the biodegradable confetti booth, eating a crepe and reviewing the booth layout on her phone.
Matteo Longie explained the situation. The booth coordinator needed the marketing materials. The architect drawings were needed for the booth setup approval. The photographs of the models were needed for the digital display panels that were supposed to be running in forty minutes.
Selena pulled out her notebook. She wrote a number down and called JJ.
JJ answered on the fifth ring, which was unusual. “I’m giving them fifteen percent on the first three orders,” Selena said. There was a pause.
“The spindles smell like mint and something else,” JJ said. This was not a question. JJ had a sample on his desk. JJ had been smelling it intermittently since Monday. “I’m very relaxed for some reason. I may try a few yoga poses.”
Selena politely ended the call. She turned to Matteo Longie and the booth coordinator. “The repository will be accessible in forty minutes,” she said. “And I would like to offer you a fifteen percent discount on your first three orders for the convention facilities.”
The facilities manager looked at Selena and smiled. “The bathroom situation at the gala has been a source of significant stress for eight years and I am personally grateful. My wife loves Spindle de Provence. Do you have any samples I could lend my wife for testing purposes?”
Selena wrote something in her notebook. She was smiling. She did not show it to anyone.
The repository came back online at 3:47pm Paris time
The digital display panels went live with eleven minutes to spare, pausing longer on the photographs of models wearing off-white French frocks meditating quietly. The Spindle de Provence booth in Hall C was the fourth most visited booth on opening day. The Norwegian composting startup company was third.
JJ sent a message to #infrastructure-general at 5:12pm Moncton time: “Hall C is performing above expectations. Spindle de Provence is a differentiator. Bravo à l’équipe.”
Bart did not reply. Bart was updating the Azure Secure Score. Raja replied in one line: “The world is in a better place. Bonus implications are positive.”
The lesson is not that Azure is the wrong choice
Azure Blob Storage and AWS S3 are the same concept. Object storage, unlimited, durable, accessible from anywhere. The service was right. The region was wrong. The correct region is the one that meets the legal and contractual requirements of the people who need to access the data. Bart fixed it in forty-three minutes.
Selena gave away fifteen percent of three orders and got a booth in Hall C that smells like mint and French tarragon. JJ got his answer. Loo Loo Paper Parts is now a multi-cloud company. One cloud smells fantastic. The other one is where Bart keeps the risk report. Raja is watching the Q4 numbers.
Three questions worth asking before the asset repository goes live:
Where does your cloud data need to live to meet the legal and contractual requirements of the people accessing it?
Who is responsible for reviewing the region selection before deployments?
Does your team have a data residency checklist?
The daily concept, question, and rationale arrive at dontknowjack.club every day at noon. Selena’s Crossword every Sunday. Free. No credit card.