Understanding Azure Peering Service for Fast and Reliable Internet

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Azure Peering Service is a powerful tool that helps improve the speed and reliability of the internet. It's designed to provide a direct connection between Azure and other networks, reducing latency and improving overall performance.

By peering with Azure, organizations can take advantage of a more efficient and cost-effective way to exchange internet traffic. This can be especially beneficial for businesses with large online presence.

Azure Peering Service is particularly useful for companies that need to handle a high volume of traffic, such as online retailers or streaming services. It can help them reduce latency and improve the overall user experience.

With Azure Peering Service, organizations can also take advantage of improved security and compliance features, such as DDoS protection and content filtering.

What Is Azure Peering Service?

Azure Peering Service is an IP service that uses the public internet. It's a collaboration platform between Microsoft and service providers.

Azure Peering Service offers optimal and reliable routing via service provider partners to the Microsoft cloud over the public network.

This service is intended to provide a value-added service that improves the connectivity and performance of Microsoft cloud services.

Benefits and Features

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Azure Peering Services offers several benefits and features that can improve your network performance and monitoring. By leveraging Microsoft's Global Backbone, you can reduce latency and increase performance to Microsoft services like Office 365 and Azure AD.

The service allows you to bypass regular internet traffic and flow through the Microsoft Global Backbone, creating a pseudo-private network with private or public peering and route restrictions. This can be achieved by building your backbone on the Microsoft Global Transit Architecture with Azure Virtual WAN and leveraging Internet Connections of partner providers.

With Azure Peering Services, you get fully operational monitoring of your wide area network through the Microsoft Backbone, providing visibility into data flow and performance that's not possible with regular internet connections. To get the most out of this service, choose a provider well peered with Microsoft and consider Dedicated Internet Access over regular Internet Connections.

Here are some key considerations when selecting a provider for Azure Peering Services:

  • Choose a provider well peered with Microsoft
  • Choose a provider with hot potato routing to Microsoft
  • Don't let the price decide the provider, a good network has costs
  • Choose Dedicated Internet Access before regular Internet Connection any time possible
  • If possible use locale providers instead of global ones
  • A good provider always has a looking glass or can provide you with default routes between a city location and other peering partners. If not, it is not a good provider to choose

What It Solves

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Azure Peering Services solves several key issues for network performance and monitoring. By leveraging Microsoft's Provider Peering with AS 8075 and partnering with Microsoft Azure Peering Services providers, you can change the default routing and transit behavior to Microsoft services.

One major problem it addresses is the issue of slow performance to Microsoft services. With Azure Peering Services enabled, you can expect an increase in performance and a reduction in latency, benefiting services like Office 365 or Azure AD.

Another issue it solves is the lack of visibility into your network's data flow and performance. With Microsoft Azure Peering Services, you get fully operational monitoring of your wide area network through the Microsoft Backbone, providing a clear view of your network's traffic and performance.

To take full advantage of Azure Peering Services, it's essential to choose a provider that is well-peered with Microsoft. Here are some key considerations:

  • Choose a provider well peered with Microsoft
  • Choose a provider with hot potato routing to Microsoft
  • Don't let the price decide the provider, a good network has costs
  • Choose Dedicated Internet Access before regular Internet Connection any time possible
  • If possible use locale providers instead of global ones
  • A good provider always has a looking glass or can provide you with default routes between a city location and other peering partners. If not, it is not a good provider to choose

By following these guidelines and using Azure Peering Services, you can optimize your network's performance and gain valuable insights into your network's traffic and performance.

Robust, Reliable

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Peering Service uses two types of redundancy to ensure high availability. Local redundancy is achieved by interconnecting Microsoft and service providers across multiple Microsoft Edge PoP locations.

Each location requires failover across two routers to ensure continuous service. Interconnection must support this failover to prevent service disruptions. Peering locations are provisioned with redundant and diverse peering links to further reduce the risk of outages.

Geo-redundancy is also used to ensure that traffic routes to and from Microsoft via alternate sites if one of the Edge nodes experiences degraded performance. Microsoft uses SDN-based routing policies for optimal performance, always choosing the nearest Microsoft Edge PoP to the end user.

This approach ensures that the customer is only one network hop (AS hops) away from Microsoft. By using the shortest routing path, traffic is delivered efficiently and reliably.

Getting Started

To get started with Azure Peering Services, you'll need to onboard a Peering Service connection, which involves working with your internet service provider (ISP) or Internet Exchange (IX) Partner to obtain a Peering Service to connect your network with the Microsoft network.

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First, ensure the connectivity provider is partnered with Microsoft for Peering Service.

You can onboard a Peering Service connection by following these steps: work with your ISP or IX Partner to obtain a Peering Service and ensure the connectivity provider is partnered with Microsoft.

To configure Azure Peering Services, you'll need to understand that there are two sites to contact and configure.

You'll need to follow the steps below to establish a Peering Services connection: provision the connectivity from a connectivity partner, and then register locations into the Azure portal.

Here's a step-by-step guide to register locations into the Azure portal:

  • Customer provision the connectivity from a connectivity partner (no interaction with Microsoft).
  • Customer registers locations into the Azure portal, including ISP/IXP Name, Physical location of the customer site (state level), and IP Prefix given to the location by the Service Provider or the enterprise.

After registering locations, you can configure the service using the Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, or Azure CLI.

Here are the ways to register for the public beta:

  • Register Peering Service Preview by using the Azure portal.
  • Register a Peering Service Preview connection by using the Azure PowerShell.
  • Register a Peering Service Preview connection by using the Azure CLI.

Understanding Transit

Transit is a crucial concept to grasp when it comes to understanding Azure Peering Service. Transit refers to the process of using another network or network provider to reach a destination network.

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Transit providers are known as Tier 1 networks, with larger networks being considered as Tier 1 networks. They give transit to other providers, allowing them to reach the destination network.

Using transit can be costly, with high costs for transitive routing through other networks. Additionally, it can add latency and uncontrollable space between customers and cloud services.

To avoid transit routing, network providers can peer with cloud providers through private or public network interconnect at interconnect locations.

Here are the different types of peering agreements:

  • between equal providers or peering partners – traffic upload and download between these two networks is free for both parties
  • a larger provider and a smaller provider – the smaller provider needs to pay a fee for the transit traffic to the larger network provider
  • providers who transit another network to reach a 3rd party network (upstream service) – the provider using the upstream needs to pay a fee for the transit traffic to the upstream provider

By peering with cloud providers, network providers can give customers more control over how they reach cloud services, such as Microsoft Azure.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Azure peering service and ExpressRoute?

Azure Peering Service offers optimized public connectivity, whereas Azure ExpressRoute provides private, dedicated connections to customer locations. If you need private connectivity, ExpressRoute is the better choice, but for optimized public connectivity, Peering Service is the way to go.

Which of the following types of peering does Azure support?

Azure supports two types of peering: Virtual network peering for connections within the same region and Global virtual network peering for connections across regions.

Jeannie Larson

Senior Assigning Editor

Jeannie Larson is a seasoned Assigning Editor with a keen eye for compelling content. With a passion for storytelling, she has curated articles on a wide range of topics, from technology to lifestyle. Jeannie's expertise lies in assigning and editing articles that resonate with diverse audiences.

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