Blog ENG - MS Azure - Post 4 2024
ExpressRoute is a service that facilitates the creation of private connections between your on-premises networks and Azure workloads in designated peering locations. These locations are colocation facilities housing Microsoft Enterprise Edge (MSEE) devices, serving as the gateway to Microsoft’s network.
Types of Connections within Peering Locations
- ExpressRoute Circuit:
- Consists of two logical connections between your on-premises network and Azure.
- These connections are made through a pair of physical links provided by an ExpressRoute partner, such as AT&T, Verizon, or Equinix.
- ExpressRoute Direct:
- A dedicated and private connection between your on-premises network and Azure, eliminating the need for partner provider involvement.
- Enables the direct connection of your routers to the Microsoft global network using dual 10G or 100G ports.
Standard ExpressRoute Configuration
The standard ExpressRoute configuration is set up with a pair of links to enhance the reliability of your connection. This setup is designed to provide redundancy and improve the availability of your ExpressRoute connections during hardware failures, maintenance events, or other unforeseen incidents within the peering locations. However, these redundant connections do not provide resilience against certain events that could disrupt or isolate the edge location where the MSEE devices are located, potentially leading to a complete loss of connectivity from your on-premises networks to your cloud services.
Introducing ExpressRoute Metro
ExpressRoute Metro is a high-resiliency configuration designed to provide multi-site redundancy. This configuration allows you to benefit from a dual-homed setup that facilitates diverse connections to two distinct ExpressRoute peering locations within a city. The high resiliency configuration benefits from the redundancy across the two peering locations to offer higher availability and resilience for your connectivity from your on-premises to resources in Azure.
Key Features of ExpressRoute Metro
- Dual-homed connections to two distinct ExpressRoute peering locations within the same city.
- Increased availability and resiliency for your ExpressRoute circuits.
- Seamless connectivity from your on-premises environment to Azure resources through an ExpressRoute circuit with the assistance of a connectivity provider or with ExpressRoute Direct (Dual 10G or 100G ports).
ExpressRoute Metro Locations
- Amsterdam Metro (Region: West Europe) – ER Direct supported
- Singapore Metro (Region: Southeast Asia) – ER Direct supported
- Zurich Metro (Region: Switzerland North) – ER Direct supported
Migrating from an Existing ExpressRoute Circuit to a Metro Circuit
If you want to migrate from an existing ExpressRoute circuit, you need to create a new ExpressRoute Metro circuit. Then, follow the steps for circuit migration to transition from the existing standard ExpressRoute circuit to the ExpressRoute Metro circuit.
By leveraging ExpressRoute Metro, you can significantly enhance the resilience and availability of your network connections, ensuring a more robust and reliable connection to your Azure resources.