Just as you plan the network in your data center or company, you need to do it in Azure also. Networking is essential in Azure and if you do not plan it right you could force outages or bottlenecks for deployed services.

Depending on what you plan with Azure, you should put some effort in planning your network and connections into Azure.

Within this chapter, you will learn the basics about Azure networking, how to implement Azure networking, and how to decide which WAN and connectivity solution you should use.

We are going to explore the following topics:

• Azure virtual networks
• Azure virtual network gateways
• Azure local gateways
• Azure site-to-site and point-to-site VPN
• Azure ExpressRoute
• Azure virtual WAN
• Azure Firewall
• Azure DDoS
• Azure connections and routes
• Azure DNS
• Azure application gateway

We will also set up a basic network configuration during this chapter.