Day 10: Navigating the Azure Cloudscape - Exploring Virtual Networks
Tags: 100daysofcloud, azure, adcstreak, cloud
Published: 2024-01-28 05:50:03

Yesterday marked another milestone in my #100DaysOfCloud journey as we delved into the foundational element of Azure networking: Virtual Networks.  

### Understanding Virtual Networks: 
Virtual Networks (VNets) serve as the backbone of Azure networking, providing isolated and secure environments for Azure resources. By defining private IP address spaces and subnets, VNets enable seamless communication between Azure resources while ensuring network isolation and security.

### Enabling Secure Connectivity: 
VNets play a crucial role in facilitating secure connectivity within Azure and extending on-premises networks to the cloud. Through features like Virtual Network Peering and VPN Gateway, organizations can establish secure connections between VNets, on-premises data centers, and remote users, enabling seamless hybrid networking scenarios.

### Scalability and Flexibility: 
One of the key advantages of Virtual Networks is their scalability and flexibility. Organizations can dynamically scale VNets to accommodate growing workloads and applications, adjusting subnet sizes, and adding new regions as needed. This scalability ensures that Azure networking remains agile and responsive to changing business needs.

### Network Isolation and Segmentation: 
VNets enable network isolation and segmentation, allowing organizations to segment their Azure resources into distinct subnets based on application requirements, security considerations, or compliance needs. This segmentation enhances security posture and facilitates efficient network management.

### Implementing Network Security: 
Virtual Networks serve as the foundation for implementing network security controls within Azure. By integrating with Network Security Groups (NSGs), Azure Firewall, and other security services, organizations can enforce access controls, traffic filtering, and threat prevention measures to safeguard their Azure resources.

### Empowering Cloud Networking: 
As organizations embrace the cloud, Virtual Networks emerge as the linchpin of Azure networking, empowering them to build resilient, secure, and scalable cloud infrastructures. Whether it's enabling secure connectivity, facilitating network segmentation, or enforcing security controls, Virtual Networks lay the groundwork for successful cloud deployments.

### Virtual networks provide the following key functionality:

- Communication with the Internet: Outbound Internet connectivity is enabled by default for all resources within the VNet.
- Communication between Azure resources: We can achieve this through three methods: within the Virtual Network, through Service Endpoints, and through Vnet Peering.
- Communication with On-Premise resources: This can be done using VPN (Site-to-Site or Point-to-Site) or Azure Express Route.
- Filtering Network Traffic: We can utilize either Network Security Groups (NSGs) or Virtual Appliances, such as firewalls, to filter network traffic.
- Routing Network Traffic: We can control where traffic is routed for each subnet using route tables or employ Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to learn our On-Premise routes when using VPN or Azure Express Route.

### Components of a Virtual Network:

- Subnets: These allow us to divide the VNet into one or more segments, enabling us to segment our network and control traffic flow. Each subnet can have its own IP address range, security group, and route table.
- Routing: This component routes traffic and creates a routing table, ensuring that data packets are delivered to their intended destinations within the VNet.
- Network Security Groups: These provide security by allowing or denying traffic based on specific rules that we define. NSGs act as virtual firewalls, protecting our resources from unauthorized access.

Thanks, @azdevindia and @beingwizard for the amazing session and resources.

### Resources:
- https://michaeldurkan.com/2021/11/16/100daysofcloud-day10-azurevirtualnetworks1/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feQvnIUJ3Iw