Microsoft certified five networking vendors to deliver Office 365 networking in a way that minimizes latency and maximizes performance in accordance with Microsoft’s guidelines. The first five services in its Office 365 Networking Partner Program are Citrix SD-WAN; NTT Communications SD-WAN service; Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect; NetFoundry Network-as-a-Service; and ZScaler Internet Access.
Citrix, NTT and Silver Peak all use SD-WAN for connectivity. NetFoundry says its NaaS provides on-demand, cloud-orchestrated connectivity. And ZScaler uses a variety of software technology to optimize Office 365 networking.
“Their solutions have met Microsoft’s testing requirements enabling direct and local internet connectivity for Office 365 in accordance to our program requirements,” said a Microsoft statement. “These qualified partners also provide detailed and easy to implement customer guidance on how to configure and use their solutions based on Microsoft recommended best practices, which minimizes the possibility of configuration errors, interoperability problems, and other issues that can impact Office 365 user experience.”
Microsoft said the most significant factor that determines the quality of the Office 365 end-user experience is network reliability and low latency between Office 365 clients and Office 365 service front doors. “In order to realize optimal user experience in the cloud, we advise organizations to make the transition from legacy hub-and-spoke, data-center-focused enterprise network and security architectures to modern architectures that help you securely manage Office 365 traffic and deliver better performance,” the company said.
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While it announced its first five networking partners today, the company is still working with other vendors that want to be certified. Those vendors include Cisco, Oracle and Riverbed.