Microsoft, DE-CIX launch Azure Metro in five cities

Microsoft and DE-CIX have launched georedundant Azure ExpressRoute Metro connectivity in North America, Europe and Asia, with the service available in five cities.

The rollout covers New York, Frankfurt, Madrid, Amsterdam and Singapore, where customers can connect to two separate ExpressRoute locations within the same metropolitan area. The design is intended to keep traffic flowing if one path fails by providing a second connection for sensitive enterprise applications and AI workloads.

The arrangement gives customers private, dedicated links between their own infrastructure and Microsoft Azure. DE-CIX delivers the service through its carrier- and data-centre-neutral cloud and AI exchanges, with remote access also available from its other exchange locations through its backbone network.

The operator now runs 29 on-ramps to Azure in 24 cities worldwide. It maintains more than 160 cloud on-ramps in total and close to a terabit of bandwidth to major hyperscale cloud providers.

Resilience focus

The expansion reflects growing demand for network designs that reduce the risk of disruption for cloud-based systems, particularly where low latency and continuity matter. Businesses running AI tools, hybrid cloud setups and other critical applications have increasingly sought physically separate routes into cloud environments.

Azure ExpressRoute Metro is designed around that requirement by linking customers to separate Azure peering points within the same city. That differs from a single-connection model, where one local failure can interrupt access to applications and data.

Dr Christoph Dietzel, Head of Products and Research at DE-CIX, described physical separation as central to resilient network operations.

"The physical separation of network interconnects - as deployed in the Azure ExpressRoute Metro solution implemented by DE-CIX - is a best practice for resilient operations and a hallmark of DE-CIX's architecture globally," said Dr Christoph Dietzel, Head of Products and Research at DE-CIX.

"DE-CIX's distributed, carrier- and datacentre-neutral exchanges enable local and remote access to all the major cloud players. This secures critical enterprise processes and workloads and allows companies to build a more robust cloud connectivity architecture, integrating a multi-cloud approach and including remote cloud regions for backup and resiliency. DE-CIX's platform provides the basis for harnessing and harmonising cloud and AI activities while simplifying connectivity."

Cloud links

The partnership also extends Microsoft's reach through DE-CIX interconnection sites, which connect carriers, internet service providers, content companies and enterprises. For organisations that need direct rather than public internet access to cloud resources, exchanges such as these have become a common way to link to multiple providers from a single network environment.

DE-CIX's platform supports direct connections not only to Microsoft Azure but also to AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud and IBM Cloud. That places the Azure ExpressRoute Metro launch within the broader market for hybrid and multi-cloud networking, where companies often seek to connect workloads across several providers while keeping backup routes available.

Microsoft described the move as a further extension of access to Azure through a direct path into its network, and highlighted the role of redundancy in supporting critical applications.

"We are pleased to work with DE-CIX to further extend access to Microsoft Azure," said Sudha Mahajan, Partner, Azure Cloud & AI, at Microsoft.

"Connecting directly to Azure ExpressRoute Metro on the DE-CIX platform provides a low-latency path to the Microsoft network. The ExpressRoute Metro architecture ensures redundant and resilient connectivity to support critical workloads."

DE-CIX operates internet exchanges in 60 locations across Europe, Africa, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia. Its services are accessible from data centres in more than 600 cities and are used by thousands of network operators, internet service providers, content providers and enterprise networks in more than 100 countries.