Connect, safe, and simplify your community sources with Azure Virtual Network Manager | Azure Blog and Updates

Enterprise-scale administration and configuration of your community sources in Azure are key to maintaining prices down, decreasing operational overhead, and correctly connecting and securing your community presence within the cloud. We are glad to announce Azure Virtual Network Manager (AVNM), your one-stop store for managing the connectivity and safety of your community sources at scale, is usually obtainable.

What is Azure Virtual Network Manager?

AVNM works by a foremost means of group, configure, and deploy. You’ll group your community sources throughout subscriptions, areas, and even tenants; configure the form of connectivity and safety you need amongst your grouped community sources; and eventually, deploy these configurations onto these community teams in whichever and nonetheless many areas you’d like.

Common use circumstances

Common use circumstances for AVNM embody the next and may be addressed by deploying AVNM’s connectivity and safety admin configurations onto your outlined community teams:

• Interconnected digital networks (VNets) that talk straight with one another.
• Central infrastructure providers in a hub VNet which can be shared by different VNets.
  • Establishing direct connectivity between spoke VNets to cut back latency.
• Automatic upkeep of connectivity at scale, even with the addition of latest community sources.
• Enforced normal safety guidelines on all current and new VNets with out threat of change.
  • Keeping flexibility for VNet homeowners to configure community safety teams (NSGs) as wanted for extra particular visitors dictation.
• Application of default safety guidelines throughout a whole group to mitigate the chance of misconfiguration and safety holes.
• Force-allowance of providers’ visitors, equivalent to monitoring providers and program updates, to stop unintentional blocking by safety guidelines.

Connectivity configuration

Hub and spoke topology

When you’ve got some providers in a hub VNet, equivalent to an Azure Firewall or ExpressRoute, and it is advisable to join a number of different VNets to that hub to share these providers, which means you’ll have to determine connectivity between every of these spoke VNets and the hub. In the longer term, in the event you provision new VNets, you’ll additionally want to ensure these new VNets are appropriately linked to the hub VNet.

With AVNM, you may create teams of VNets and choose these teams to be linked to your required hub VNet, and AVNM will set up all the required connectivity between your hub VNet and every VNet in your chosen teams behind the scenes. On high of the simplicity of making a hub and spoke topology, new VNets that match your required circumstances may be routinely added to this topology, decreasing guide interference out of your half.

For the time being, establishing direct connectivity between the VNets inside a spoke community group continues to be in preview and can develop into typically obtainable (GA) at a later date.

Mesh

If you need your whole VNets to have the ability to talk with one another regionally or globally, you may construct a mesh topology with AVNM’s connectivity configuration. You’ll choose your required community teams and AVNM will set up connectivity between each VNet that is part of your chosen community teams. The mesh connectivity configuration function continues to be in preview and can develop into typically obtainable at a later date.

How to implement connectivity configurations with current environments

Let’s say you’ve got a cross-region hub and spoke topology in Azure that you simply’ve arrange by guide peerings. Your hub VNet has an ExpressRoute gateway and your dozens of spoke VNets are owned by varied software groups.

Here are the steps you’ll take to implement and automate this topology utilizing AVNM:

1. Create your community supervisor.
2. Create a community group for every software crew’s respective VNets utilizing Azure Policy definitions that may be conditionally based mostly on parameters together with (however not restricted to) subscription, VNet tag, and VNet identify.
3. Create a connectivity configuration with hub and spoke chosen. Select your required hub VNet and your community teams because the spokes.
4. By default, all connectivity established with AVNM is additive after the connectivity configuration’s deployment. If you’d like AVNM to scrub up current peerings for you, that is an choice you may choose; in any other case, current connectivity may be manually cleaned up later if desired.
5. Deploy your hub and spoke connectivity configuration to your required areas.

In just some clicks, you’ve arrange a hub and spoke topology amongst dozens of VNets from all software groups globally by AVNM. By defining the circumstances of VNet membership on your community teams representing every software crew, you’ve ensured that any newly created VNet matching these circumstances will routinely be added to the corresponding community group and obtain the identical connectivity configuration utilized onto it. Whether you select to have AVNM delete current peerings or not, there is no such thing as a downtime to connectivity between your spoke VNets and hub VNet.

Security function

AVNM at the moment gives you with the flexibility to guard your VNets at scale with safety admin configurations. This sort of configuration consists of safety admin guidelines, that are high-priority safety guidelines outlined equally to, however with priority over NSG guidelines.

The safety admin configuration function continues to be in preview and can GA at a later date.

Enforcement and adaptability

With NSGs alone, widespread enforcement on VNets throughout a number of functions, groups, and even total organizations may be tough. Often there’s a balancing act between makes an attempt at centralized enforcement throughout a company and handing over granular, versatile management to groups. The value of exhausting enforcement is larger operational overhead as admins must handle an growing variety of NSGs. The value of particular person groups tailoring their very own safety guidelines is the chance of vulnerability as misconfiguration or opened unsafe ports is feasible. Security admin guidelines intention to remove this sliding scale of selecting between enforcement and adaptability altogether by offering central governance groups with the flexibility to determine guardrails, whereas deliberately permitting visitors for particular person groups to flexibly pinpoint safety as wanted by NSG guidelines.

Difference from NSGs

Security admin guidelines are much like NSG guidelines in construction and enter parameters, however they aren’t the very same assemble. Let’s boil down these variations and similarities:

One key distinction is the safety admin rule’s Allow sort. Unlike its different motion forms of Deny and Always Allow, in the event you create a safety admin rule to Allow a sure sort of visitors, then that visitors can be additional evaluated by NSG guidelines matching that visitors. However, Deny and Always Allow safety admin guidelines will cease the analysis of visitors, which means NSGs down the road won’t see or deal with this visitors. As a end result, no matter NSG presence, directors can use safety admin guidelines to guard a company by default.

Key Scenarios

Providing exceptions

Being capable of implement safety guidelines all through a company is helpful, to say the least. But one of many advantages of safety admin guidelines that we’ve talked about is its allowance for flexibility by groups throughout the group to deal with visitors in a different way as wanted. Let’s say you’re a community administrator and also you’ve enforced safety admin guidelines to dam all high-risk ports throughout your total group, however an software crew 1 wants SSH visitors for a number of of their sources and has requested an exception for his or her VNets. You’d create a community group particularly for software crew 1’s VNets and create a safety admin rule assortment focusing on solely that community group—inside that rule assortment, you’d create a safety admin rule of motion sort Allow for inbound SSH visitors (port 22). The precedence of this rule would have to be larger than the unique rule you created that blocked this port throughout your whole group’s sources. Effectively, you’ve now established an exception to the blocking of SSH visitors only for software crew 1’s VNets, whereas nonetheless defending your group from that visitors by default.

Force-allowing visitors to and from monitoring providers or area controllers

Security admin guidelines are helpful for blocking dangerous visitors throughout your group, however they’re additionally helpful for force-allowing visitors wanted for sure providers to proceed operating as anticipated. If you understand that your software groups want software program updates for his or her digital machines, then you may create a rule assortment focusing on the suitable community teams consisting of Always Allow safety admin guidelines for the ports the place the updates come by. This means, even when an software crew misconfigures an NSG to disclaim visitors on a port needed for updates, the safety admin rule will make sure the visitors is delivered and doesn’t hit that conflicting NSG.

How to implement safety admin configurations with current environments

Let’s say you’ve got an NSG-based safety mannequin consisting of a whole bunch of NSGs which can be modifiable by each the central governance crew and particular person software groups. Your group carried out this mannequin initially to permit for flexibility, however there have been safety vulnerabilities on account of lacking safety guidelines and fixed NSG modification.

Here are the steps you’ll take to implement and implement organization-wide safety utilizing AVNM:

1. Create your community supervisor.
2. Create a community group for every software crew’s respective VNets utilizing Azure Policy definitions that may be conditionally based mostly on parameters together with (however not restricted to) subscription, VNet tag, and VNet identify.
3. Create a safety admin configuration with a rule assortment focusing on all community teams. This rule assortment represents the usual safety guidelines that you simply’re imposing throughout your total group.
4. Create safety admin guidelines blocking high-risk ports. These safety admin guidelines take priority over NSG guidelines, so Deny safety admin guidelines haven’t any risk of battle with current NSGs. Redundant or now-circumvented NSGs may be manually cleaned up if desired.
5. Deploy your safety admin configuration to your required areas.

You’ve now arrange an organization-wide set of safety guardrails amongst your whole software groups’ VNets globally by AVNM. You’ve established enforcement with out sacrificing flexibility, as you’re capable of create exceptions for any software crew’s set of VNets. Your outdated NSGs nonetheless exist, however all visitors will hit your safety admin guidelines first. You can clear up redundant or averted NSGs, and your community sources are nonetheless protected by your safety admin guidelines, so there is no such thing as a downtime from a safety standpoint.

Learn extra about Azure Virtual Network Manager

Check out the AVNM overview, learn extra about AVNM in our public documentation set, and deep-dive into AVNM’s safety providing by our safety weblog.