datamena, from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), the fastest growing carrier neutral data centre and connectivity platform based in the UAE and serving the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, announced at this year’s Capacity Middle East conference that OSN is to start trials using Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute with datamena. This will allow OSN to extend their on-premises network into the Microsoft cloud over a private connection from datamena.

“This is another example of how datamena is working with regional content players and Global Hyperscalers to facilitate digital disruption in the Middle East,” said Fahad Al Hassawi, Deputy CEO, Telco Services, Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company. “We have a long history and strong partnership with OSN who we are proud to be working with as they continue their journey of cloud innovation.” ExpressRoute is an Azure service that lets you create private connections between Microsoft datacenters and infrastructure that’s on your premises or in a colocation facility.

ExpressRoute connections do not go over the public Internet, and offer higher security, reliability, and speeds with lower latencies than typical Internet connections. In some cases, using ExpressRoute connections to transfer data between on-premises devices and Azure can yield significant cost benefits.