Microsoft opens 31 new Azure edge sites to improve network latency

Microsoft yesterday announced the launch of 31 new Azure Edge sites around the world. Edge sites offer improved visibility and higher availability to access services. With this announcement, Microsoft now has over 150 Edge sites across more than 50 countries. Microsoft also announced that it is adding 14 new meet-me sites to Azure ExpressRoute to further expand access to dedicated private connections between on-premises environments and Azure.

These new Edge sites will help Project xCloud in bringing down the latency for gamers. Microsoft mentioned in their blog post that more than 80 percent of global GDP can experience Azure with sub-30 milliseconds latency.

Edge sites advantages:

• Improved optimization for application delivery through Azure Front Door (AFD.) Microsoft recently announced AFD, which allows customers to define, manage, accelerate, and monitor global routing for web traffic with customizations for the best performance and instant global failover for application accessibility.
• An enhanced customer experience via high-bandwidth access to Azure Blob storage, web applications, and live video-on-demand streams. Azure Content Delivery Network delivers high-bandwidth content by caching objects to the consumer’s closest point of presence.
• Private connectivity and dedicated performance through Azure ExpressRoute. ExpressRoute provides up to 100 gigabits per second of fully redundant bandwidth directly to the Microsoft global network at select peering locations across the globe, making connecting to and through Azure a seamless and integrated experience for customers.

Source: Microsoft