Introduction to Azure Networking
Azure networking provides a comprehensive set of cloud networking capabilities to build and manage your network infrastructure in the cloud. It enables you to connect Azure resources to each other, to the internet, and to your on-premises environments securely and reliably.
This documentation provides an in-depth look at Azure's core networking services, best practices, and common scenarios.
Key Networking Services
Azure offers a wide range of networking services. Here are some of the most fundamental ones:
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Virtual Network (VNet)
The fundamental building block for your private network in Azure. VNets allow you to provision and manage a virtual network in Azure. You can then link multiple VNets together and connect them to your on-premises datacenter.
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Load Balancer
Distributes incoming traffic across multiple virtual machines, ensuring high availability and responsiveness of your applications.
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Azure Firewall
A managed, cloud-native network security service that protects your Virtual Network resources. It is a highly available and scalable cloud firewall that enables you to define, share, and log network security policies across your subscriptions and workloads.
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VPN Gateway
Enables you to send encrypted traffic between your on-premises network and Azure over the public Internet, or to send encrypted traffic between two or more Azure virtual networks. This is often referred to as a site-to-site (S2S) VPN or VNet-to-VNet connection.
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Azure DNS
A hosting service for DNS domains that provides name resolution using Azure. By hosting your domains in Azure, you can manage your DNS records using the same credentials, APIs, and billing as your other Azure services.
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Azure Traffic Manager
A DNS-based traffic load balancer that allows you to distribute traffic to your services hosted in different regions. This improves application availability and responsiveness. Traffic Manager works at the DNS level to direct client requests to the most appropriate endpoint based on a traffic-routing method you choose.
Getting Started
To begin with Azure networking, it's recommended to start by creating a Virtual Network. You can do this through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell.
Best Practice:
Plan your IP address space carefully before creating your VNet to avoid conflicts and allow for future growth.
Example: Creating a VNet with Azure CLI
az network vnet create \
--resource-group MyResourceGroup \
--name MyVNet \
--address-prefix 10.0.0.0/16 \
--subnet-name MySubnet \
--subnet-prefix 10.0.0.0/24
Next Steps
Explore the following topics to deepen your understanding of Azure networking: