Equinix has gone live with Azure ExpressRoute in its Melbourne datacentre, ME1.
As of today, Melbourne businesses will be able to directly connect with Microsoft Azure through the ME1 International Business Exchange data centre.
The deployment is part of Equinix’s global partnership with Azure which now directly connects 16 markets globally with Azure ExpressRoute.
Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables customers to quickly build, deploy and manage applications.
Azure ExpressRoute is designed to help customers bridge public cloud and on-premise IT to privately and more securely extend enterprise networks while improving performance, reliability and scalability.
Equinix Cloud Exchange is an advanced interconnection solution that enables direct access to multiple clouds from multiple networks.
Following the expansion of Equinix’s Australian footprint, Melbourne businesses will now have the opportunity to access multiple cloud providers, such as Azure ExpressRoute, via the Equinix Cloud Exchange.
This provides Melbourne enterprises improved security, low-latency and high-performance direct connections with public and private cloud providers.
Azure ExpressRoute’s expansion into ME1, provides Equinix’s Australian customers with geo-redundancy.
This enables enterprises to access Azure in Australia’s two largest economic centres.
This dual market presence further ensures high-performance, network reliability, redundancy, and low-latency.
The ME1 IBX datacentre enables Melbourne businesses to connect with Equinix’s network-dense ecosystem of more than 1,000 networks globally, 130 of which are available in Australia.
It provides customers with access to over 500 cloud providers across more than 100 datacentres worldwide, providing improved performance of cloud-based applications and workloads through high-throughput, low-latency connections.
ME1, Equinix’s fourth datacentre in Australia and its first in Melbourne, officially opened in March 2014.
ME1 has more than 50 customers deployed.
Equinix Australia managing director, Jeremy Deutsch, said enterprises required the ability to connect to multiple clouds, multiple users and multiple networks to fully reap the business benefits of cloud computing.
"It is through the Equinix Cloud Exchange we can offer our Melbourne customers improved security with a flexible and reliable connection to Azure, giving Equinix customers further choice and flexibility to pick the cloud services and connections best suited for them,” he said.
Microsoft Azure, principle product manager, networking, Ross Ortega, said Microsoft was pleased to continue to work with Equinix to provide more Australian customers and partners with the option to create private connections between the Azure public cloud and infrastructure located on-premises or in a co-location environment.
