Megaport Enables Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro for More Resilient Network Connectivity

By Chris Cabel, Senior Director, Global Cloud Solutions

With our latest enablements, you can use ExpressRoute Metro and Megaport to reduce downtime, improve latency, and protect your bottom line.

Downtime. Sunken costs. Missed deadlines. Compromised data. Poor latency.

All of these problems have one thing in common (besides the fact that they strike fear in the hearts of network architects) – they’re consequences of a network with poor resiliency. This is, simply put, the capacity of a network to maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of hardware failures, network congestion, malicious attacks, and more.

A resilient network will not only recover quickly from such issues but, in many cases, can operate as if the problems never occurred in the first place. It is no surprise, then, that companies are prioritizing resiliency in their cloud and networking setups. The benefits are numerous:

• Consistent customer experience: Resilient networks ensure that businesses can provide a consistent and reliable service to their customers. This reliability can directly affect your company’s reputation and bottom line.
• Protected uptime: Resiliency provides a level of protection against data loss and can significantly reduce downtime following an incident, thus safeguarding a business’s operational continuity.
• Bolstered security: Resiliency is intrinsically linked to security as it involves proactive measures and responsive systems that can anticipate, withstand, and recover from malicious incursions, safeguarding data and preserving business integrity.
• Scalability: As businesses grow and evolve, so too must their networks. Resilient networks are inherently more flexible, capable of adapting to changes in demand and scaling to accommodate new requirements.
• Data-driven decisions: The robustness of your network directly influences the reliability of data collection, analysis, and dissemination processes. Resilient networks ensure these critical operations can continue unhindered.

Microsoft Azure is rich in features to help you architect for network resiliency. ExpressRoute Metro is one of the latest additions to this feature set.

About Azure ExpressRoute Metro

ExpressRoute Metro is your key to a more resilient, reliable Azure network. This service enhances reliability by offering increased private path diversity between on-premises networks and Azure, bypassing the internet to ensure consistent performance.

Think of ExpressRoute Metro as a high resiliency architecture of Azure ExpressRoute, designed with a pair of redundant private connections via two nearby edge locations within a metropolitan area (hence the name). Unlike Standard ExpressRoute which offers protection of one of the two connections within a single edge location only, ExpressRoute Metro provides protection against failure of an entire edge location. In Azure’s own words, “you can benefit from a dual-homed configuration that enables diverse connections to two distinct edge sites within a city.”

With ExpressRoute Metro, businesses enjoy more reliable and faster connections compared to typical internet-based connections, as well as higher security and better performance for their cloud services. Organizations can also significantly reduce their network latency and enhance the consistency of their connection to Microsoft cloud services.

“Delivering highly resilient connectivity solutions is our top priority. ExpressRoute Metro solution, with built-in high availability, stands as a testament to our unwavering commitment to our customers,” says Sudha Mahajan, Partner Product Management, Azure Networking at Microsoft.

Learn more about designing and architecting ExpressRoute Metro for resiliency.

Megaport’s new enablements for ExpressRoute Metro

As a vendor-neutral, private connectivity provider, our customers already use us for scalable, reliable, and performant ExpressRoute connectivity. Now, we have enabled ExpressRoute Metro in two locations—Amsterdam and Singapore. This allows us to support the “high resiliency” connectivity tier for an ExpressRoute network that can route through multiple sites in a metropolitan area. With this addition, we now provide all three resiliency options in locations where we have ExpressRoute Metro enabled:

• Standard: Two ExpressRoute VXCs deployed to two separate Microsoft edge devices in a single data center. This is the least resilient as it is single-homed.
• High (ExpressRoute Metro): Two ExpressRoute VXCs deployed to two separate Microsoft edge devices in two separate data centers. This enables multi-site resiliency to mitigate the effect of edge-site isolation and site diversity failures.
• Maximum: Four ExpressRoute VXCs deployed across four separate Microsoft edge devices in two separate data centers. This structure eliminates any single point of failure within the Microsoft network path.

Learn more about diversity in Azure connections.

Get started with ExpressRoute Metro and Megaport

With these new enablements and options, you can now tailor the resiliency of your Azure connections with Megaport to meet Microsoft’s SLA and optimize your Azure architecture, all while getting the added benefits of using Megaport’s Network as a Service (NaaS):

• Connect to leading service providers, anytime, from anywhere.
• Access a global network underlay of 850+ enabled locations and 365+ service providers.
• Enable private paths in minutes on our ISO/IEC 27001 certified network.
• Adjust bandwidth on demand and build only what you need, right when you need it.
• Take control of your network with easy-to-use software tools and APIs.

For customers keen on leveraging these enhanced resiliency features, getting started is straightforward. Microsoft Azure provides comprehensive guidance on configuring Metro ExpressRoute circuits through the Azure Portal.

For more information on configuring an ExpressRoute connection via Megaport, check out our Docs page.

As ExpressRoute Metro’s network expands, we plan to grow alongside it, so you can scale your more resilient Azure network well into the future.

Contact our Sales team or request a demo to get a custom run-through of how to architect ExpressRoute Metro with Megaport for your cloud environment.