Global data center company Equinix has announced the offering of private, managed connections to Microsoft Office 365 via Azure ExpressRoute through its Equinix Cloud Exchange. Available in Q3 of this year, direct access to Office 365 from inside Equinix will be available in 15 markets worldwide.
As many business applications migrate to a cloud-delivery model, enterprise customers would be looking for cloud connectivity solutions that offer more consistent and reliable performance than the public Internet.
Bandwidth and latency-sensitive productivity applications such as Office 365 would specifically benefit from a direct access solution. By providing private, secure access to Office 365, Equinix ensures that enterprise customers will achieve predictable network performance, the ability to better manage network availability and the reliability that comes with dedicated connectivity.
In addition, when connecting to Office 365 via Azure ExpressRoute at Equinix, businesses would gain additional assurance of privacy with the ability to bypass the public Internet.
Equinix first launched its partnership with Microsoft in April 2014. Direct access to Office 365 will be available in all 15 markets, including Amsterdam, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Osaka, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.
“Office 365 customers have been asking for direct connectivity to Office 365 since Azure ExpressRoute launched last year, and we’re pleased that Equinix will be among the first to offer it through Cloud Exchange,” said Mike Schutz, GM of Cloud Platform, Microsoft. “With network performance as predictable as a customer’s own on-premises environment, ExpressRoute for Office 365 is like having the full Office 365 productivity solution in your own datacenter. It is a great option for organizations that require premium, managed connectivity to their productivity services.”
