Colt Cloud prioritization for Microsoft 365

Colt Cloud Prioritization is an add-on to Colt IP Access that routes access to Microsoft 365, Teams and Azure via a direct, private peering connection instead of the public internet. It is based on Microsoft Azure Peering Service, one of the first carrier partnerships of its kind in Europe. Companies can decide themselves how much bandwidth is dynamically reserved for Microsoft traffic. The result is consistently high performance with guaranteed latency, even when the last mile is congested.

Without cloud prioritization, traffic to Microsoft 365 runs via the chosen internet provider, possibly via additional third-party providers, and only then to the Microsoft cloud. This leads to high latencies, the use of public IP addresses without a deterministic path, and a larger attack surface for DoS attacks. For time-critical applications such as Microsoft Teams telephony in particular, this shows up as noticeable delays and quality drops. Colt Cloud Prioritization closes exactly this gap.

Colt Cloud Prioritization combines a private peering architecture with packet prioritization between the customer router and Colt’s provider edge router. The company’s internet connection runs exclusively via Colt’s own network and has a direct connection to Microsoft and its Azure platform. Companies decide themselves how much bandwidth and what priority is assigned to individual Microsoft applications, for example giving Microsoft Teams telephony higher priority than SharePoint.

Colt guarantees a maximum network delay of 30 milliseconds to the next peering location. Colt also guarantees that no data is routed via third-party networks, but runs exclusively over the direct connection between Colt and Microsoft. This combination of guaranteed latency and the exclusion of third-party routing delivers a predictable, consistently high-quality user experience for Microsoft SaaS applications.

According to Colt’s current documentation, Colt is directly connected to the Microsoft cloud at more than 20 locations across Europe and Asia, without third-party ISPs. This direct interconnection infrastructure is the technical foundation for the guaranteed latency of cloud prioritization. The exact number of locations can change as Colt’s network expands further. SAVECALL keeps track of the current status for you and advises on availability at your location.

Colt Cloud Prioritization is particularly suitable for companies with many employees or several sites accessing a shared Microsoft 365 system. The more users there are and the more critical Microsoft applications are for business operations, the more the guaranteed performance impacts productivity and user experience. For smaller environments with few users, the added benefit relative to the cost may be lower. SAVECALL advises vendor-neutrally on whether the solution pays off for your situation.