Equinix, Inc. has announced a partnership to bring Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute to 16 global markets inside Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers. As the first data center provider to deliver this global offering, Equinix will enable customers to directly connect to Azure in Equinix IBX data centers across five continents including: North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Australia. Additionally, customers interested in previewing the solution can now connect to ExpressRoute via the Equinix London data center (LD5).

"Businesses are demanding private and secure connections to the cloud to ensure optimal performance and scalability," said Melanie Posey, research vice president at IDC. "On-site applications such as virtual desktops and customer relationship management (CRM) are migrating to the cloud, alongside born-on-the-cloud Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) business processes. As a result, companies are looking for cloud connectivity alternatives which offer more consistent performance than the public Internet can provide. Businesses require low-latency and highly reliable connectivity for distributed applications that are increasingly being delivered via the hybrid cloud model. A dedicated private network also returns control to the internal teams responsible for the applications. With Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, Equinix and Microsoft are enabling high-performance hybrid cloud on a global basis."