Enhancing Azure cloud Network Performance, Resiliency and Security

Mar 01,2024

Introduction

The customer is a leading software company with over 700 skilled professionals. With a global presence in key tech hubs across North America, Europe, and Asia, which brings innovative solutions to the doorstep. Boasting an annual revenue exceeding $150 million, specialize in custom software development, technology consulting, and continuous digital innovation.

Challenges

Customers faced challenges related to network complexity, scalability, and the need for a robust failover solution for its Azure infrastructure.

Network Complexity: The existing Azure network architecture was complex and challenging to manage as the company expansion its cloud services because of distributed and unorganized connectivity.

Hybrid Connectivity: With on-premises resources and a need for consistent and secure connectivity, customer sought a solution that seamlessly integrated on-premises data centers with Azure.

Failover and Redundancy: Ensuring high availability and disaster recovery capabilities were critical for business continuity.

Technology Solutions

Hub-and-Spoke Topology: Deployed a hub-and-spoke topology in Azure cloud, where the hub VNet acts as the central point of connectivity, and spokes VNets represent individual business units or applications.

ExpressRoute for Hybrid Connectivity: Implemented Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute to establish private, dedicated connections between Azure data centers and on-premises locations.

Connected on-premises data centers to the Azure hub VNet via ExpressRoute circuits, ensuring low-latency, high-throughput, and secure connectivity.

VPN for Backup to ExpressRoute: Configured a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection as a failover solution to provide redundancy in case of any issues with the ExpressRoute connection.

Leveraged Azure VPN Gateway to establish secure site-to-site VPN connections between on-premises locations and the Azure hub VNet.

Network Security: Implemented network security groups (NSGs) and Azure Firewall to control inbound and outbound traffic, ensuring a secure and compliant network environment.

Scalability and Management: Leveraged Azure Virtual WAN for simplified and scalable hub-and-spoke architecture management, allowing customer to easily add new spokes as the business grows.

Implementation Strategy

Define Networking Requirements: Identify business and technical requirements, considering factors such as performance, security, compliance, and scalability. Determine the type of resources that need to communicate within Azure and with on-premises data center.

Design Virtual Network Architecture: Plan the Azure Virtual Network (VNet) architecture, including the segmentation of resources into subnets. Consider implementing a hub-and-spoke topology for centralized network management and improved security.

Address Security Concerns: Configure Network Security Groups (NSGs) to control inbound and outbound traffic, implementing necessary security rules. Consider deploying Azure Firewall or third-party network security appliances for additional protection.

Implement Connectivity: Design resilient and robust connectivity architecture:

Azure ExpressRoute: A dedicated and private connectivity to Azure from on-premises for high performance and SLA-based throughput.
Azure VPN Gateway: A secure site-to-site VPN for backup connectivity and remote access VPN connections for enhance remote user experience.
Configure and validate connectivity, ensuring proper routing and failover mechanisms.

Results and Impact

Simplified Network Management: The hub-and-spoke topology streamlined network management, making it more efficient and scalable for the customer.

Enhanced Connectivity: ExpressRoute provided a dedicated and secure connection between on-premises data centers and Azure, improving data transfer speeds and reliability.

Failover Capability: The VPN failover solution ensured business continuity by providing an alternative connectivity path in case of issues with the primary ExpressRoute connection.

Improved Security: Network security measures, including NSGs and Azure Firewall, enhanced the overall security posture of customer Azure environment.

Conclusion

The re-architecture of Azure networking for customers successfully addressed the challenges related to complexity, connectivity, and failover. The hub-and-spoke topology, combined with ExpressRoute for primary connectivity and VPN as a failover solution, provided a robust, scalable, and secure network infrastructure. This strategic implementation positions customer for continued growth and resilience in the competitive cloud services market.