Microsoft Azure For Dummies

Chapter 4

Planning Your Virtual Network Topology

IN THIS CHAPTER

Differentiating Azure’s virtual network building blocks

Deploying and configuring virtual networks

Connecting virtual networks

People at Microsoft told me a couple of years ago that networking was the number-one support request in Azure. This makes sense to me for at least a couple of reasons:

• Ethernet and TCP/IP internetworking is a complicated subject that’s deep enough to build an entire career on.
• Software-defined networking in the Azure cloud is vastly different from on-premises hardware networking.
• The costs and consequences of making a mistake with Azure networking are high.

In this chapter, I lay the groundwork for Azure networking. I talk about the virtual network, which forms the boundary in which you place your virtual machine (VM) and potentially other Azure services.

Understanding Virtual Network Components

The virtual network (VNet) is a strong isolation and communications boundary in Azure. A common beginner’s mistake is placing VMs on separate VNets and expecting communication between them to be possible by default — because, say, the VNets are in the same Azure region and subscription.

Not true! ...