Hello and welcome to ExpressRoute. In this lesson, we are going to take a look at what ExpressRoute is and what it offers.

ExpressRoute is an offering you can use to extend your on-prem networks into Azure. It’s essentially a private connection from your network to Azure that’s facilitated by a third-party connectivity provider.

You can use ExpressRoute to establish connectivity from an any-to-any network, a point-to-point  Ethernet network, or from a virtual cross-connection through a connectivity provider at a co-location facility. It’s important to note that connections made with ExpressRoute do NOT traverse the public internet. Because they do not traverse the internet, ExpressRoute connections are inherently more secure, more reliable, and typically faster than site-to-site connections that traverse the internet.

ExpressRoute connections offer several benefits. For example, such connections allow you to establish connectivity to Microsoft cloud services across all regions within a geopolitical region. Global connectivity across all regions to Microsoft services can be achieved trough the use of the ExpressRoute premium add-on.

ExpressRoute connections also provide for dynamic routing between your on-prem networks and Microsoft via BGP, and the built-in redundancy that ExpressRoute offers provides higher reliability. There is even a connection uptime SLA of 99.95% for ExpressRoute dedicated circuit availability.

You can use ExpressRoute connections to access Microsoft Azure services and Microsoft Office 365 services. ExpressRoute circuits come in a variety of bandwidths. You can purchase a circuit with as little as 50Mbps in bandwidth, and you can purchase a circuit with as much as 10Gbps in bandwidth.  There are also several options in between.

The table on your screen shows what’s available:

• 50 Mbps
• 100 Mbps
• 200 Mbps
• 500 Mbps
• 1 Gbps
• 2 Gbps
• 5 Gbps
• 10 Gbps

You can even increase the bandwidth of your ExpressRoute circuit without having to tear down existing connections. This is a huge plus in my book.

When you deploy an ExpressRoute circuit, you’ll have to decide what billing model you wish to use. The “Unlimited Data” billing model is based on a monthly fee. It offers unlimited inbound and outbound transfer for a single fee.

“Metered Data” billing is also based on a monthly fee. However, it’s a little different from “Unlimited Data” because, while all inbound data transfer is included free of charge, outbound data transfers are charged on a “per-GB” basis.

The “Express Route Premium Add-On” that I mentioned earlier is a paid add-on to the ExpressRoute circuit. This premium add-on increases the number of route limits for Azure public and private peering from 4,000 routes to 10,000 routes. It also offers global connectivity across any region except for the national clouds. The ExpressRoute Premium Add-On also increases the number of vNet links per circuit from the default of 10 to a larger limit, which is determined by the bandwidth of the circuit that you purchase.

Be sure to check out the ExpressRoute FAQ at the URL that you see on your screen: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/expressroute/expressroute-faqs