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LinkedIn is moving all its data to the public cloud — bringing the professional information and networks of 645 million members around the world with it — and it didn’t have to look far to find a provider.

In a post on — where else? — LinkedIn, Senior Vice President of Engineering Mohak Shroff wrote that the company is embarking on a “multi-year migration” of all its workloads to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform. Microsoft reached a deal to acquire LinkedIn in 2016 for a whopping $26.2 billion, and since then it has steadily married the business social network with its own offerings. This deal takes that integration to a new level.

“Moving to Azure will give us access to a wide array of hardware and software innovations, and unprecedented global scale,” Shroff wrote in the post. “This will position us to focus on areas where we can deliver unique value to our members and customers.”

Today, LinkedIn operates its own data centers. The company has five total data centers, including a primary corporate data center, three others in the U.S. and one in Singapore.

The goal is ultimately to move its data over to Azure, but LinkedIn emphasized it will be a long process. The company will continue to rely on its data centers during the transition.

Shroff wrote that LinkedIn “built a data infrastructure that operates at a scale very few companies have achieved.” He cited the company’s move to bolster its computing power as its membership growth put more pressure on its servers as an example of the work LinkedIn has put into its infrastructure.

However, Shroff notes, the need to constantly reinvent its technology and infrastructure drove LinkedIn to make the change. The company hopes that by doing so, it can “drive the next stage of LinkedIn’s growth” under Microsoft’s umbrella and on its servers.

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