Latency is the new currency of the Cloud: Announcing 31 new Azure edge sites

Providing users fast and reliable access to their cloud services, apps, and content is pivotal to a business’ success.

The latency when accessing cloud-based services can be the inhibitor to cloud adoption or migration. In most cases, this is caused by commercial internet connections that aren’t tailored to today’s global cloud needs. Through deployment and operation of globally and strategically placed edge sites, Microsoft dramatically accelerates the performance and experience when you are accessing apps, content, or services such as Azure and Office 365 on the Microsoft global network.

Edges optimize network performance through local access points to and from the vast Microsoft global network, in many cases providing 10x the acceleration to access and consume cloud-based content and services from Microsoft.

What is the network edge?

Solely providing faster network access isn’t enough, and applications need intelligent services to expedite and simplify how a global audience accesses and experiences their offerings. Edge sites provide application development teams increased visibility and higher availability to access services that improve how they deliver global applications.

Edge sites benefit infrastructure and development teams in multiple key areas

• Improved optimization for application delivery through Azure Front Door (AFD.) Microsoft recently announced AFD, which allows customers to define, manage, accelerate, and monitor global routing for web traffic with customizations for the best performance and instant global failover for application accessibility.
• An enhanced customer experience via high-bandwidth access to Azure Blob storage, web applications, and live video-on-demand streams. Azure Content Delivery Network delivers high-bandwidth content by caching objects to the consumer’s closest point of presence.
• Private connectivity and dedicated performance through Azure ExpressRoute. ExpressRoute provides up to 100 gigabits per second of fully redundant bandwidth directly to the Microsoft global network at select peering locations across the globe, making connecting to and through Azure a seamless and integrated experience for customers.

New edge sites

Today, we’re announcing the addition of 31 new edge sites, bringing the total to over 150 across more than 50 countries. We’re also adding 14 new meet-me sites to Azure ExpressRoute to further enable and expand access to dedicated private connections between customers’ on-premises environments and Azure.

More than two decades of building global network infrastructure have given us a keen awareness of globally distributed edge sites and their critical role in a business’ success.

By utilizing the expanding network of edge sites, Microsoft provides more than 80 percent of global GDP with an experience of sub-30 milliseconds latency. We are adding new edges every week, and our ambition is to provide this level of performance to all of our global audience.

This expansion proves its value further when workloads move to the cloud or when Microsoft cloud services such as Azure, Microsoft 365, and Xbox are used. By operating over a dedicated, premium wide-area-network, our customers avoid transferring customer data over the public internet, which ensures security, optimizes traffic, and increases performance.

New edge sites

Upcoming edge sites

New ExpressRoute meet-me sites

With this latest announcement, Microsoft continues to offer cloud customers the fastest and most accessible global network, driving a competitive advantage for organizations accessing the global market and increased satisfaction for consumers.

Explore the Microsoft global network to learn about how it can benefit your organization today.