What is ExpressRoute?
What does Belnet offer?
What is the difference between an Express route and a classic VPN connection through Internet?
What about the advantages?
What is ExpressRoute?
- A private connection to the Microsoft Azure or Oracle cloud services.
- A redundant layer 2 VPN tunnel to Microsoft or Oracle.
- A routing protocol (BGP) to guarantee connectivity.
What does Belnet offer?
- Azure Belgium Central (ABC)
Advantages:
- Local Data Residency: Data stored remains within Belgium, ensuring compliance with national and EU data sovereignty laws for regulated industries.
- Low latency to Azure: Lowest latency for Belgian workloads through high-capacity edge nodes and private ExpressRoute connectivity.
- Local Control: Belnet controls everything and is no longer dependent on a third party as GÉANT.
Services available in ABC (mid 2026)
Not every service is available in the region (yet), but that is not an issue.
- Choose region per workload strategy
- Use ABC as main region and use another region as exception
- AI, Databricks
- Oracle OCI or other hyperscalers
- Your own specialized hardware
- Azure File Sync
- GÉANT
We will set up a Layer2 VPN from your connection at Belnet (access port or VLAN on one of Belnets acces router or CPE) to the edge where Belnet meets GÉANT. ExpressRoute is always set up in a redundant way. This means that we need to set up two Layer 2 VPNs which terminate on the primary and secondary connection with GÉANT. You will have to set up a Layer 3 architecture so traffic can be exchanged between his infrastructure in Azure and the on premises network.
We provide guidance to set this up, because it implies knowledge of certain protocols such as BGP and QinQ, which are not always standard technologies known to the customer. We will also serve as SPOC when problems arise with ExpressRoute.
What is the difference between an Express route and a classic VPN connection through Internet?
- ExpressRoute:
- Available only from the endpoint of the tunnel that we will create.
- Private network with dedicated bandwidth.
- Up to 10 Gbps bandwidth.
- Dedicated cloud services for datacenters.
- Classic VPN:
- Available from anywhere on the Internet.
- Public network, subject to congestion and bottleneck.
- Up to 100 Mbps bandwidth.
- Classical cloud services for end users.
What about the advantages?
- Dedicated Layer 2 connection.
- Scalable bandwidth (in theory up to 10 Gbps).
- Private IP addressing with BGP for better resilience.
- Independent from IP connectivity (commercial Internet connection).