Equinix to Offer Direct Access to Office 365 via Equinix Cloud Exchange

Equinix will begin offering private, managed connections to Microsoft Office 365 via Azure ExpressRoute through the Equinix Cloud Exchange.

The service bypasses the public Internet, thereby providing lower latency and better security for enterprise customers accessing Office 365. Equinix expects to offer the service in 15 markets worldwide starting in Q3 of this year.

Equinix first launched its partnership with Microsoft in April 2014, and today offers direct connection to Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute in 15 markets globally via the Equinix Cloud Exchange.

“By offering direct access to Office 365 on Cloud Exchange, we are helping our enterprise customers get the most out of their cloud investments. Private access to Office 365 results in lower latency and higher performing connections, thus providing business grade performance and the end-user experiences that enterprises are demanding with their adoption of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications,” stated Chris Sharp, vice president, cloud innovation, Equinix.

“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. 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," said Mike Schutz, GM of cloud platform, Microsoft.

http://www.equinix.com