Equinix, Inc. has announced that Azure ExpressRoute has deployed into its Melbourne data center, ME1. As of today, Equinix enables Melbourne businesses to be able to directly connect with Microsoft Azure through the ME1 International Business Exchange (IBX®) data center. The deployment is part of Equinix's global partnership with Azure which now directly connects 16 markets globally with Azure ExpressRoute.

"Microsoft is pleased to continue to work with Equinix to provide even more Australian customers and partners the option to create private connections between the Azure public cloud and infrastructure located on-premises or in a colocation environment," said Ross Ortega, principle product manager, Networking, Microsoft Azure.

In the recently released report, Deloitte Access Economics: The Connected Continent II¹, it was noted Australia's digital economy contributed $79 billion to Australia's GDP in 2013/14. This contribution is estimated to increase to $139 billion by 2020. Equinix is playing a major role in advancing the Australian digital economy, through the recent expansion of its Australian footprint.

"As we move into the interconnected era, enterprises require 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," said Jeremy Deutsch, managing director, Equinix Australia.

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 seamless, on-demand, 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 geo-redundancy, enabling enterprises to access Azure in Australia's two largest economic centers. This dual market presence further ensures high-performance, network reliability, redundancy, and low-latency.

The ME1 IBX data center 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 data centers worldwide, providing improved performance of cloud-based applications and workloads through high-throughput, low-latency connections.

ME1, Equinix's fourth data center in Australia and its first in Melbourne, officially opened in March 2014. ME1 has more than 50 customers deployed, reflecting the strong demand for Equinix's data center and interconnection services.

¹ Deloitte Access Economics: The Connected Continent II

This article was originally posted “Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Now Available In Equinix's ME1” from Cloud Strategy Magazine.