NextDC offers dedicated fibre into heart of Microsoft Azure

NextDC has announced ExpressRoute connection capabilities with Microsoft's public cloud, giving users a dedicated fibre channel in Azure.

The deal is particularly significant given that Azure Australia is understood to be hosted within NextDC co-lo facilities in Sydney and Melbourne – a fact neither party has ever confirmed.

NextDC has promised latency as low as one millisecond in some locations. Other benefits of ExpressRoute include better security, lower network costs, improved resiliency and "dynamic bandwidth through automated network provisioning". 

ExpressRoute users can bridge their private cloud environments within NextDC data centres in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth with Microsoft Azure over this private, high-speed, low-latency connection.

According to a NextDC statement, "Microsoft's physical infrastructure for Azure ExpressRoute is available via a NextDC switching fabric that provides more secure connectivity and real-time provisioning."

NextDC chief executive Craig Scroggie said: "Through our collaboration with Microsoft, we can open up myriad new opportunities for hybrid cloud computing models."

ExpressRoute will be available in NextDC data centres from the second quarter of this year.

Public cloud leader Amazon Web Services calls its dedicated networks DirectConnect. A host of Australian data centre providers offer service, including Equinix, Pacnet, Amcom and AAPT.

Equinix has been actively forging deals using its Cloud Exchange to provide dedicated connections to public cloud providers, including Cisco Intercloud, IBM SoftLayer and Google Cloud Platform.