How to locate your optimal front-door location to Microsoft services (Proof of Concept tool)

Sometimes I get the question on how to check if the network is following the best route to Microsoft365 services.
You can check on the “IP and URL list”, but it will not give a lot information about this topic.

I continued my search and found an interesting tool, maybe familiar with you already, that I never used before.
The tool I’m talking about is the “Office 365 Network Onboarding tool”.

The Site

The site is asking for your location you want to test from, in my case I used my home-location; (Houten, The Netherlands).

How to locate your optimal front-door location to Microsoft services (Proof of Concept tool)

The Check

After selecting your location, it will automatically check the connection from that place including; your Internet Service Provider (ISP), your network egress architecture and the network path used to connect into Office365 service front-doors).

The tool will provide you, when needed, recommendations to improve your office365 performance. Below the results from my place, too bad that all looks good šŸ˜‰ It is funny that the optimal front-door location for me is in Paris and not in The Netherlands.

How to locate your optimal front-door location to Microsoft services (Proof of Concept tool)

Detailed information and Solutions

The “Details and Solutions” tab is providing you the detailed results of your test, see below my detailed test results:

How to locate your optimal front-door location to Microsoft services (Proof of Concept tool)

FAQ

Just want to include some FAQ from the website in this post. this is all copy/paste from the website:

Is this tool released and supported by Microsoft? 
It is currently a proof-of-concept and we plan to provide updates regularly until we reach general-availability release status with support from Microsoft. Please provide feedback to help us improve. We are planning to publish a more detailed Office365 Network-Onboarding guide as part of this tool which is customized for the organization by its test results.

What is Office365 service front door? 
It’s an entry point on Microsoft’s global network where Office clients and services terminate their network connection. For an optimal connection to Office365, it’s recommended that your connection is terminated into the closest Office365 front-door in your city. Note: Office365 service front-door has no direct relationship to the ā€œAzure Front-Door Serviceā€ product available in the Azure marketplace.

What is an optimal Office365 service front door? 
An optimal Office365 service front door is one that is closest to your network egress, generally in your city. Use the Office365 network-performance-tool to determine location of your in-use Office365 service front door and optimal service front door. If the tool determines your in-use front door is optimal, then you are optimally connecting into Microsoft’s global network.

What is an internet egress location? 
The internet egress Location is the location where your network traffic exits your enterprise network and connects to the Internet. This is also identified as the location where you have a Network-Address-Translation (NAT) device and usually where you connect with an Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). If you see a long distance between your location and your internet egress Location, this may identify a significant WAN-backhaul.

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