Networking is one of the core services of the Azure IaaS offering, fitting alongside storage and compute as one of the three pillars of building your infrastructure in the cloud with think S3.
The Azure virtual network closely resembles a traditional network that you’d operate in your own data center, but with the key benefit of being able to take advantage of the vast scalable infrastructure available in the cloud. It provides an isolated and secure environment to run your virtual machines and applications. You can use your private IP addresses and define subnets, access control policies, and more.
With Virtual Networks, you can treat Azure just as you would your own datacenter.
How Does Networking in Azure Work and What Are My Options?
Traffic between Azure resources, whether in a single region, or in multiple regions, stays in the Azure network. Intra-Azure traffic does not flow over the Internet. For example, within Azure, traffic for VM-to-VM, storage, and SQL communication traverses only the Azure network, regardless of the source and destination Azure region
With Virtual Network, you can easily extend your on-premises IT environment into the cloud, much the way that you can set up and connect to a remote branch office. You have multiple options to securely connect to a Virtual Network—you can choose an IPSec VPN or a private connection using the Azure ExpressRoute service.
Point-to-site VPN lets you connect to your virtual machines on Azure virtual networks from anywhere, whether you are on the road or working from your favourite café, managing your deployment, or doing a demo for your customers.
Networking products currently available in Azure include:
| Virtual Network | Connect everything from virtual machines to incoming VPN connections |
| Load Balancer | Balance inbound and outbound connections and requests to your applications or service endpoints |
| Application Gateway | Optimise delivery from application server farms while increasing application security with a web application firewall |
| VPN Gateway | Securely use the Internet to access Azure Virtual Networks with high-performance VPN gateways |
| Azure DNS | Ensure ultra-fast DNS responses and ultra-high availability for all your domain needs |
| Content Delivery Network | Accelerate the delivery of high-bandwidth content to customers worldwide – from applications and stored content to streaming video |
| Azure DDoS Protection | Protect your Azure applications from the impacts of DDoS attacks |
| Traffic Manager | Distribute traffic optimally to services across global Azure regions, while providing high availability and responsiveness |
| Express Route | Add private network connectivity to access Microsoft cloud services from your corporate networks, as if they were on-premises residing in your own data centre |
| Network Watcher | Monitor and diagnose conditions at a network-scenario level |
For more on the full variety of services available for networking in Azure, speak to our team today.
How Do I Get Started With Networking in Azure?
Our Microsoft trained and accredited architects will help you to design and implement your infrastructure to get the most from your networking in Azure.
Starting with an assessment of your environment and then working closely with your team through workshops and implementation days, we will make sure that your move to compute in the cloud is as effective and efficient as it can be – truly transforming IT for your business.
Our ongoing managed service will ensure that your Azure environment stays this way, keeping you up to date with the latest releases and technology available to you and being on the end of the phone for support if anything needs looking at.
Want to know more or start your environment assessment? Complete the form below:
