We work closely with other teams and groups at Microsoft so we can deliver intelligent customer engagement solutions that take advantage of the wealth of innovation the company has to offer. This is true with our work with the Office teams in the productivity enhancements we are set to deliver this fall with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016. It’s also true with the close work we are doing with the Azure teams to address the needs of our customers.
To help some of our customers who need increased control, predictable performance and security over their network connections, we’re pleased to announce that starting later this year Dynamics CRM Online customers will be able to use Azure ExpressRoute to establish a private, managed connection to CRM Online. Since ExpressRoute launched last year, our customers have been asking for this capability. Currently, ExpressRoute provides customers with dedicated network connectivity through a private connection from their network to Microsoft Azure, and we’re excited to extend the same option for connectivity to CRM Online.
With network performance as predictable as your own on-premises environments, ExpressRoute for CRM Online is like having the full CRM Online productivity solution in your own datacenter. ExpressRoute will offer CRM Online customers more predictable network performance, the ability to better manage network availability and the reliability that comes with dedicated connectivity. In addition, with ExpressRoute most CRM Online network traffic can avoid the public Internet, providing additional data privacy.
ExpressRoute delivers the benefits of public cloud, while surpassing the network reliability and privacy of the Internet. It is a great option for organizations that require premium, managed connectivity to their productivity services. It allows organizations to define all aspects of your network connectivity provider’s connection from Microsoft to their users, helping ensure predictable network performance and availability. Our customers can also use multiple ExpressRoute providers to establish ExpressRoute circuits in different geographic locations for additional redundancy and geo-resiliency.
Each ExpressRoute circuit automatically delivers two active physical connections for high availability, and the Microsoft networking elements are backed by our connection uptime SLA of 99.9 percent. We’re the only public cloud provider to offer this level of guaranteed availability for the connection. Of course, we are also the only public cloud provider who can offer both Azure and CRM Online services on a single network connection.
ExpressRoute is available today for access to Azure services, and is expected to be available for CRM Online in the fourth quarter of 2015. Network capacity planning is a first step to any networking project, whether using the Internet or ExpressRoute. Stay tuned for more on availability dates and offerings from our network connectivity provider partners. You can learn more about ExpressRoute here.
Bob Stutz, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics CRM