Azure VPN Gateway Overview
Azure VPN Gateway is a service that you can use to send encrypted traffic between your on-premises networks and your Azure Virtual Network (VNet) through the public Internet. You can also use VPN Gateway to send encrypted traffic between Azure VNet locations and between Azure VNet and other Azure services, such as Azure Container Instances.
Key Benefit: Securely connect your on-premises infrastructure to Azure resources without requiring dedicated network hardware. Ideal for hybrid cloud scenarios.
What is Azure VPN Gateway?
Azure VPN Gateway provides a secure and reliable way to establish connections over the public internet. It acts as a VPN device in the cloud that encrypts and decrypts the traffic flowing between your on-premises network and your Azure VNet.
Key Features and Capabilities
- Site-to-Site (S2S) VPN: Connects your on-premises network to an Azure VNet.
- VNet-to-VNet VPN: Connects multiple Azure VNets together securely.
- Point-to-Site (P2S) VPN: Connects individual client devices to an Azure VNet, enabling remote access for users.
- IKE/IPsec VPNs: Supports industry-standard VPN protocols for secure tunneling.
- BGP Support: Enables dynamic route propagation between on-premises VPN devices and Azure VPN Gateway.
- Active-Active Configuration: Provides high availability for your VPN connections.
- Zone Redundancy: Enhances resilience by distributing VPN gateway instances across availability zones.
Use Cases
- Hybrid Cloud Connectivity: Seamlessly extend your on-premises datacenter to Azure.
- Disaster Recovery: Establish a secure backup connection for critical workloads.
- Remote Access: Allow employees to securely access Azure resources from anywhere.
- Securing Data in Transit: Encrypt sensitive data as it travels between networks.
Types of VPN Gateways
Azure offers different SKUs of VPN Gateways, each with varying performance levels, connection capacities, and features. Common types include:
- Basic: Suitable for development/testing and small workloads.
- VpnGw1-5: Offers increasing performance and connection limits for production workloads.
- AZ SKUs (e.g., VpnGw1AZ): Provides zone-redundancy for higher availability.
Getting Started
To set up an Azure VPN Gateway, you typically need to:
- Create a Virtual Network in Azure.
- Create a dedicated subnet for the VPN Gateway (named
GatewaySubnet). - Create a VPN Gateway resource, selecting the appropriate SKU and configuration.
- Configure the connection from your on-premises VPN device to the Azure VPN Gateway, or set up P2S connections.
You can manage VPN Gateways and connections through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell.