Azure global network
Enable a wide range of enterprise and consumer services with a highly available, secure, and agile network.
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Join one of the largest networks in the world, backed by decades of continuous investment.
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Extend your reach across 60+ Azure regions with speed and scale to meet your needs.
Extend your reach across 60+ Azure regions with speed and scale to meet your needs.
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Trust the same resilient network infrastructure that supports Skype, Bing, and Microsoft Exchange.
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Fastest connectivity from your datacenter to the cloud at 100 Gbps through Azure ExpressRoute
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More than 185 global network POPs
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IP traffic stays entirely within our global network and never enters the public Internet
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165,000 miles of lit fiber optic and undersea cable systems
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Ultra-low latency in Los Angeles, Miami, Vancouver metros
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Give your business a powerful and resilient backbone
Enable fast and scalable performance for all your apps and services. The Azure global network backbone connects hundreds of network POPs and data centers to support massive enterprise and consumer services like Microsoft 365 and Xbox. Learn how we build it.
Fortify your systems with intelligent and adaptive security
Built on a sophisticated software-defined networking stack developed in collaboration with Microsoft Research and the open-source community, Azure rapidly predicts, emulates, and responds to issues and anomalies. Read about Azure network security.
Stay close to your apps and data for enhanced performance
Run your apps and services across Azure regions and global edge nodes that reach thousands of unique internet partners. Whether you access Microsoft cloud services via the Internet or a private connection, such as ExpressRoute, proximity to Azure helps you improve performance. All traffic entering the global network remains entirely within it, regardless of location.
Run your apps on leading-edge innovation
The Azure network deploys updates reliably in hours. Encompassing hundreds of datacenters and thousands of switches, the network infrastructure is powered by Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC). This open-source switch operating system is developed to meet the requirements of a largescale platform like Azure and is supported by industry-leading vendors.
Deliver low latency Azure services in densely populated metros
Transform how cloud and edge work together with Azure Edge Zones. Easily deploy applications and virtualized network functions (VNF) to provide your customers seamless compute, storage, IoT, and container services for latency-sensitive workloads.
Stay close to your apps and data for enhanced performance
Explore global cloud networking
- Azure blog: What’s new in networking
- Microsoft Ignite 2018: Azure Internals - A glimpse under the hood
- Cloud Networking Meetup 2018: Reliable networking at global scale
- SONiC: Networking switch software that powers the Azure global network
- Microsoft Research: Working to get rid of network downtime
- Undersea cable systems for the cloud
- Marea subsea cable
- Microsoft research in systems and networking
Go deeper on optics innovation
- Interoperation of Layer-2/3 Modular Switches with 8QAM/16QAM Integrated Coherent Optics over 2,000 km Open Line System
- Demonstration and Performance Analysis of 4 Tb/s DWDM Metro-DCI System with 100G PAM4 QSFP28 Modules
- Transmission Performance of Layer-2/3 Modular Switch with mQAM Coherent ASIC and CFP2-ACOs over Flex-Grid OLS with 104 Channels Spaced 37.5 GHz.