In today’s post I’d like to talk about site to site networking service. Azure already has a site to site VPN service, but the Azure Virtual WAN is a newer service currently in Preview. This networking service is optimized for branch to service connectivity and offers the capability to use partner devices currently supplied by preferred partners (currently Riverbed and Cisco) or the ability to manually configure this connectivity with your environment.

Azure Virtual WAN has some big differences to consider:

• Automated set up and configuration of these devices by preferred partners makes much easier to configure them. You simply set up these connections which you can export directly from the device into Azure and it automatically sets it up for you.
• It is designed for large scalability and more through-put. The site to site service is great for smaller workloads but this new service opens the pipe and allows the data to crank through much faster.
• It’s designed as a Hub and Spoke model. The Hub being Azure and the Spoke being your branch office – all managed within Azure.

Let’s look at the 4 main components of this service:

• The Virtual WAN Service itself – This asset is where the resources are collected, and it represents a virtual overlay of the Azure network. Think of it as a top down view of the connectivity between all the components in Azure and in your offices.
• A site represents the on premises VPN device and its settings. I mentioned those preferred devices from Riverbed and Sysco (with more to come) and if you’re using a supported device, you can easily drop that configuration into Azure.
• The hub is the connection point in Azure for those sites. The site connects to the hub and the virtual WAN is overlooking all of these components.
• The hub virtual network connection allows your connection point for your hub to your virtual network.

So, your hub and your virtual network are connected through that virtual network connection. This allows the communication between your virtual networks in Azure and your site to site virtual WAN.

This offering makes the landscape a bit different with how people are doing connectivity into Azure and connecting their remote offices by consolidating what that network looks like, as well as making it easier by offering these preferred devices.

Again, this is still in Preview but definitely something I would suggest checking out.