The Microsoft Online Services “Performance Test for Internet Connection to Microsoft Online Services” (formerly found at speedtest.microsoftonline.com) is back, after several months of absence.
As a Microsoft Cloud Partner, we’ve found the tool to be extremely useful when performing initial client environment discovery and general Office 365 readiness by measuring response times, bandwidth and connection quality with Microsoft Online Services. The one notable difference with this tool is the requirement to enter an Office 365 tenant domain before beginning. Interestingly enough, entering “company.onmicrosoft.com”, as listed in the example, does allow the test to begin.
We typically use the tool during the pre-sales phase with clients. During instances when we can’t be on site to run the tool ourselves, It’s very easy to direct clients to the tool so they can run it from a computer within their company network, and then return the results to us.
Once the tool has completed it’s run, click on the down arrow in the bottom-left (highlighted in the image below) to reveal more tabs:
Clicking on the Advanced tab reveals summary statistics from the test, including download and upload capacity:
The tool is hosted on two different sets of domains/URLs, each with a version available for three different regions. Currently, the cloudapp.net locations appear to be the most reliable and available.
Fast Track Network Analysis (North America)
http://na1-fasttrack.cloudapp.net/
Fast Track Network Analysis (Asia Pacific)
http://ap1-fasttrack.cloudapp.net/
Fast Track Network Analysis (EMEA)
http://em1-fasttrack.cloudapp.net/
At the time of this writing, the APAC and EMEA sites at deployoffice365.com are not yet available:
Office 365 Network Analysis Test (North America)
http://na.deployoffice365.com
Office 365 Network Analysis Test (Asia Pacific)
http://apac.deployoffice365.com
Office 365 Network Analysis Test (EMEA)
http://emea.deployoffice365.com
Barry Thompson
Principal Consultant – Cloud Solutions
Bennett Adelson Technical Blog 