Where is Networking in Azure and What are the Key Components

Networking in Azure is a complex but essential component of the platform. It provides the infrastructure for connecting and securing your cloud resources.

At the heart of Azure Networking is the Virtual Network (VNet), a logically isolated and secure area of the Azure cloud where you can deploy your resources.

Azure Virtual Network (VNet) is a fundamental component of Azure Networking, providing a virtualized network infrastructure for your cloud resources.

Azure provides several key components that make up the Networking service, including Virtual Network (VNet), Subnets, Network Security Groups (NSGs), and Load Balancers.

Azure Networking Components are the building blocks of a secure and efficient network. A NAT Gateway acts as a post-office for your network, directing incoming and outgoing traffic to the right place.

Each Azure VM has at least one Network Interface Controller (NIC), which is like the network card in your physical computer, enabling the VM to communicate with the VNet. This association with a subnet within a VNet is crucial for network connectivity.

A single public IP address can be used for all outbound connectivity for VMs within a subnet, thanks to the NAT Gateway. This is similar to a large apartment building where everyone receives their packages from a central reception desk.

ExpressRoute is a networking service that privately connects a company's on-premises infrastructure to the Microsoft public cloud via a third-party connectivity provider.

This service offers lower latency and greater reliability than the public internet, which is a major advantage for businesses that need a stable connection.

ExpressRoute provides four different connectivity models: CloudExchange Colocation, Point-to-point Ethernet Connection, Any-to-any Connection and ExpressRoute Direct.

Some popular connectivity providers for this service include Comcast, AT&T and Equinix.

The cost of ExpressRoute starts at $55 per month for 50 Mbps of circuit bandwidth and $0.025 per GB for any outbound data transfers for an ExpressRoute Circuit.

A standard VNet gateway costs $0.19 per hour with 1 Gbps of bandwidth, which is required for this service.

This service requires deployment of both a circuit and gateway.

Azure VPN Gateway is a network gateway service for encrypted traffic to travel across virtual networks or sites over the internet.

It's a crucial tool for connecting multiple sites or virtual networks, and IT teams have various options to choose from, including site-to-site, point-to-site, VNet-to-VNet, multisite, and Azure ExpressRoute.

The basic version of VPN Gateway costs $0.04 per hour for 100 Mbps of bandwidth, making it a cost-effective solution for many organizations.

Outbound data traveling between two virtual networks is charged at $0.035 per GB, which is a relatively low rate compared to other cloud services.

For point-to-site VPNs, data transfer rates are charged at standard data transfer rates, which can vary depending on the specific plan and usage.

Azure Networking Components are the building blocks of a robust and secure network. Azure provides several components to help you manage and secure your network.

A NAT Gateway is a key component that simplifies outbound-only Internet connectivity for virtual networks. It allows all outbound connectivity to use your specified static public IP addresses, making it easier to manage and secure your network.

You can create a NAT Gateway resource using the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or a template. This flexibility allows you to choose the method that best suits your needs.

A public IP address is a dedicated address that enables Internet resources to communicate with Azure resources and vice versa. You can associate a public IP address with various Azure resources, including virtual machine network interfaces, virtual machine scale sets, and NAT gateways.

There are two types of public IP addresses: Standard and Basic. Standard public IP addresses offer advanced features, such as adjustable idle timeouts and secure by default model, while Basic public IP addresses have a more open configuration.

Here's a comparison of Standard and Basic public IP addresses:

A public IP address is like your home address, but for the internet. It's unique and allows you to be identified on the internet.

In summary, Azure Networking Components provide a robust and secure network infrastructure. With features like NAT Gateways and public IP addresses, you can manage and secure your network with ease.

A virtual network, or VNet, is like your own playground in the cloud. It's an isolated and secure environment where you can launch cloud resources.

Think of it like your office network, where all your company's computers, servers, and other network devices communicate with each other. A VNet in Azure is just like that, but it's on the cloud.

You can connect multiple VNets to each other using peering, which allows them to communicate with each other seamlessly. This is done using the Microsoft backbone infrastructure, and no public Internet, gateways, or encryption is required.

Azure supports two types of peering: virtual network peering, which connects VNets within the same region, and global virtual network peering, which connects VNets across regions.

Here are the types of peering Azure supports:

Note that transitive peering is not supported, so you must manually peer VNetA to VNetC, for example.

In Azure, you can configure your network settings through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell.

You can create a virtual network in Azure to connect your resources and services.

Azure provides several types of virtual networks, including Azure Virtual Network (VNet) and Azure Virtual WAN.

To connect your on-premises network to Azure, you can use Azure VPN Gateway or ExpressRoute.

IP Addresses are like your home address, but for the internet. They're unique and allow you to be identified online.

A public IP address is dedicated to a specific resource in Azure, until it's unassigned by a network engineer. This means a resource without a public IP assigned can communicate outbound through network address translation services.

In Azure Resource Manager, a public IP address is a resource with its own properties. You can associate a public IP address with various resources, including virtual machine network interfaces, virtual machine scale sets, and public Load Balancers.

Here are some key differences between Standard and Basic public IP addresses:

A public IP address is like a unique identifier for your Azure resources, allowing them to be accessed from the internet.

A subnet is a designated area within your virtual network, like a smaller playground within a larger one. It's a range of IP addresses that can be used for organization and security.

You can divide your virtual network into multiple subnets to group related resources together based on their purpose. This improves organization and security, just like different departments in a company have their own set of resources.

A subnet is like a department in your company, with its own set of resources and its own IP address range. You can think of it as a smaller, more manageable section of your virtual network.

To create a subnet, you can use the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, or Azure CLI. You can also use a template to create a virtual network and subnets.

Here are the methods you can use to create a virtual network and subnets:

Each subnet has its own IP address range, and you can specify the address range when creating a subnet. Make sure to select address ranges that don't overlap with other virtual networks or on-premises networks.

A subnet can have multiple address prefixes, which allows you to modify IP address spaces on a subnet. This feature is currently in public preview and is offered free of charge. However, it's not recommended for production workloads due to limitations and potential issues.

Azure offers a range of network services to help you manage and secure your cloud infrastructure. Azure Load Balancer is an OSI Layer 4 load balancer designed to offer high availability, automatically reconfiguring itself when you scale an instance.

Azure Load Balancer costs $0.025 per hour for the first five rules and $0.01 per every additional rule per hour, with data processed at $0.005 per GB. You can use it for internet-facing public load balancing or internal load balancing.

Azure Traffic Manager enables you to distribute user traffic for Azure VMs, cloud services, and web applications, offering six types of DNS routing to direct user traffic to the optimal endpoint. It charges $0.54 per million inquiries up to the first billion inquiries in a month, with health checks beginning at $0.36 per Azure endpoint per month.

Here's a brief comparison of Azure Load Balancer and Azure Traffic Manager:

Both services are designed to improve network performance and availability, but they serve different purposes. Azure Load Balancer is ideal for load balancing traffic within your cloud environment, while Azure Traffic Manager is better suited for directing user traffic to the optimal endpoint.

Azure Application Gateway is an application delivery controller service that offers load balancing at the application layer, specifically OSI Layer 7. It's designed to handle HTTP load balancing, URL-based content routing, and multisite hosting.

One of its key features is a web application firewall (WAF) that protects against web-based attacks like cross-site scripting. This is a crucial security measure for any online application.

Azure Application Gateway costs $0.246 per gateway-hour, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses looking to improve their application delivery.

Here are some of its key features:

With these features, Azure Application Gateway is an excellent choice for businesses looking to improve the performance and security of their online applications.

Private Link allows IT teams to access Azure services via a private endpoint in their virtual network, eliminating the need for ExpressRoute, VPN connections, gateways, and public IP addresses.

Azure Private Link doesn't charge for the service itself, but it does charge $0.01 per hour for a private endpoint.

Private endpoints are accessible via on-premises VPN tunnels and peered networks, making it a convenient option for many organizations.

The cost of using private endpoints is calculated at $0.01 per GB for processed inbound and outbound data.

Azure Network Watcher is a powerful tool that monitors deployed Azure networking services, providing a comprehensive view of the network of IaaS products like Azure VMs and Azure VNets.

It offers various tools for IT teams to keep track of resources, diagnose problems, view metrics, and analyze logs. This includes viewing the interconnections between resources and their usage.

Users are charged by the features used, which is a cost-effective way to utilize the service.

Content Delivery is a crucial aspect of Network Services, and Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a great example of this. It's a service that delivers high-bandwidth content through caches, which are strategically placed in edge locations around the world.

This approach aims to provide content physically near to end users, resulting in low latency. By doing so, it prioritizes delivery optimization.

Azure CDN focuses specifically on static content delivery, such as documents and files. You can also configure the service for dynamic content, like a PDF.

Pricing for Azure CDN starts at $0.081 per GB up to the first 10 TB per month. This makes it an affordable option for businesses and organizations that need to distribute large amounts of content.

Azure Bastion is a game-changer for secure management connectivity to virtual machines in a virtual network. It enables seamless RDP & SSH connections to VMs without exposing a public IP on the VM.

Azure Bastion supports standard SKU public IP addresses and can be created through the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or using a template. You can create a bastion host using the Azure portal, which will automatically create a virtual network, subnets, public IP, and virtual machines.

Hourly pricing for Azure Bastion starts from the moment it's deployed, regardless of outbound data usage. This means you'll be charged even if your VMs aren't actively using the internet.

You can create an Azure Bastion deployment using the following methods:

Azure Bastion is perfect for test environments, so be sure to delete the resource after you're finished using it to avoid unnecessary charges.

A NAT Gateway is a game-changer for your network, allowing you to simplify outbound-only Internet connectivity for virtual networks. It's like a post-office for your network, directing incoming and outgoing traffic to the right place.

With a NAT Gateway, you can use a single public IP address for all outbound connectivity for VMs within a subnet. This means you can have multiple subnets within the same virtual network with different NATs, each with its own public IP address.

A NAT Gateway is fully managed and highly resilient, automatically processing all outbound traffic without any customer configuration. You don't need to define user-defined routes or worry about other outbound scenarios.

You can create a NAT Gateway resource using several methods, including the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or a template. Each method allows you to create a virtual network, subnet, public IP, and NAT gateway resource.

Here are the methods you can use to create a NAT Gateway resource:

Azure NAT Gateway is highly recommended for Virtual machine scale sets with Flexible Orchestration Mode, as it provides default outbound access.

Azure Virtual Network is a game-changer for remote work and disconnected environments. It allows you to securely connect your application over the internet, regardless of where it's located.

Azure Virtual Network provides all the necessary components for creating and managing a virtual private network (VPN) for your applications. This is particularly useful when managing multiple applications across different geographical locations.

You can accomplish a range of scenarios with a virtual network, including communication of Azure resources with the internet, communication between Azure resources, and communication with on-premises resources.

Some of the key scenarios you can accomplish using a virtual network include:

A virtual network allows you to create a secure virtual private network using just a few clicks. This keeps your data safe while allowing your employees or partners access only when they need it.