When you think of Microsoft 365 services and network recommendations from Microsoft, the first thing that comes to mind is Microsoft’s network connectivity principles. These principles are the guidelines to follow when it comes to designing enterprise network connectivity for accessing Microsoft 365.
The Health | Network Connectivity page in the Microsoft 365 admin center is where you can view network connectivity assessment results for your users, which is represented as an aggregate at your tenant level and location level. “Location level” refers to your Office locations that are automatically discovered or defined by you.
You can find complete product documentation at https://aka.ms/networkproviders, but we wanted to share some details on how the new experience works.
In Health | Network Connectivity, you can find network insights to help you improve your assessment results, by understanding factors in your enterprise network design that don’t align with the network connectivity principles.
For example: Backhauled network egress has been detected at Location X and we recommend using a closer egress point.
Network provider devices are affecting your network, we detected proxy servers or firewalls between your users’ devices and Microsoft 365 endpoints.
The common feedback we heard was to improve the quality of actionable information provided through these network insights: “Don’t just tell me I am backhauling network traffic, tell me what I need to do to rectify the situation.”
Here are other examples where actionable information is missing today:
“How are the network devices affecting my network and what are the steps I can take to prevent it?”
“Are there better network connectivity providers that I can explore for my user’s network connectivity?”
We listened and have been working hard to improve your admin experience with Health | Network Connectivity, today we are thrilled to announce that the following features are generally available for all tenants in the Microsoft 365 admin center:
- Network Providers in use for your tenant users, shown at the tenant level and location level.
- Network connectivity Performance and Availability assessment results for your network providers.
- Network Provider details impacting performance assessment results.
- The Network Provider Index chart shows top performing network providers at a given location (for the USA only, coming soon for the rest of the world).
These features have been in limited public previews since June 2023. We have more than 170 enterprise customers enrolled in the public preview and provide direct feedback to improve product quality. Go to Health | Network Connectivity today to experience the new features.
How can I access the new features?
The new features are under Health | Network Connectivity in the Microsoft 365 admin center. To access them you must be assigned the Network Administrator or Global Administrator role. You can view the Network Traffic tab, which shows you your network providers at the tenant level. You can also view the table of network providers by location on the Locations tab.
How can I view network providers in use for my users at my tenant level?
You can view this in the Overview tab of Network Connectivity, where there is a widget that shows the top five network providers in use for your tenant users.
