Equinix to offer direct access to Microsoft Office 365

SINGAPORE: Global interconnection and data center company Equinix, will offer managed services to Microsoft Office 365 via Azure ExpressRoute through the Equinix Cloud Exchange.

To be available in Q32015, direct access to Office 365 will be available in 15 markets worldwide including Amsterdam, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Osaka, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Washington, DC.

As many business applications migrate to a cloud-delivery model, enterprise customers are looking for cloud connectivity solutions that offer consistent and reliable performance than the public Internet. By providing secure access to Office 365, Equinix ensures that enterprise customers will achieve predictable network performance, thereby enhancing network availability.

According to a recent Forrester report titled, Beware the Pitfalls Within Networking for Hybrid Cloud, end-user experience should be a company’s top priority when considering cloud connectivity options for business productivity applications.

Chris Sharp, Vice President, Cloud Innovation, Equinix, said, “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.”

Commented Mike Schutz, GM, Cloud Platform, Microsoft, “Office 365 customers have been asking for direct connectivity to Office 365 since Azure ExpressRoute launched last year, and we are 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. It is a great option for organizations that require premium, managed connectivity to their productivity services.”