This exam primarily measures your ability to accomplish technical tasks related to managing Azure identities and governance, implementing and managing storage, configuring and managing virtual networking, and protecting and monitoring Azure resources.
In this article, we are majorly focusing on the third domain of the exam, i.e., configuring and managing virtual networking where external networking plays a significant role.
Understanding External Networking in Azure
External networking in Azure refers to all kinds of network communication that goes outside the Azure infrastructure. This could be traffic to and from the internet, other Azure services, or your own on-premises infrastructure if you have a hybrid cloud setup. This primarily involves Azure Virtual Network, Network Security Group, Azure Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, and Azure VPN Gateway.
Common Challenges in External Networking
There may be several issues that you might encounter while working with external networking in Azure. Some of the common ones include:
- VMs unable to communicate with each other
- VMs cannot reach on-premises networks or the internet
- Connectivity issues with Azure services
- Load balancer not distributing traffic evenly
- VPN Gateway connectivity issues
Troubleshooting External Networking
Here are some of the troubleshooting steps you can take at a high level:
- Reviewing configurations: The first step in troubleshooting any external networking issues in Azure should be to review the networking configuration. This includes reviewing the settings of your Azure Virtual Network, subnet, network security group, load balancer, and VPN Gateway.
- Using Azure Network Watcher: Azure Network Watcher is a native network management tool in Azure that helps you to monitor, diagnose, and perform advanced network troubleshooting. It has various features like IP Flow Verify, Next Hop, Connection Monitor, and Network Performance Monitor that help to identify any network related issues.
- Checking Network Security Group (NSG) rules: NSGs contain rules that allow or deny traffic to resources connected to Azure Virtual Networks. If a VM is unable to communicate over the network, you should check if there are any NSG rules preventing it.
- Testing connectivity with Azure Network Watcher’s Connection Troubleshoot: Connection Troubleshoot feature in Network Watcher helps to check reachability between two endpoints in either direction.
Here’s how you can run a connection troubleshoot with Azure Network Watcher.
- Open the Azure portal.
- Search for and select Network Watcher.
- Under ‘Network Diagnostic Tools’, select ‘Connection Troubleshoot’.
- Select the subscription, resource group, source type and destination type.
- Enter the details of your source and destination.
- Select ‘Start troubleshooting’.
- Regularly reviewing and updating your networking configurations
- Regularly monitoring your network with tools like Azure Network Watcher
- Ensuring your NSG rules are structured properly
- Regularly testing connectivity issues with Azure Network Watcher’s Connection Troubleshoot
The results will provide insights about possible communication blocks between the two resources and suggest corrective measures.
Preventing Further External Networking Issues
After you’ve resolved the current issues in your external networking setup, it’s important to take preventative measures to avoid future problems. This will involve:
Mastering the techniques of troubleshooting external networking issues in Azure is an important module that will assist you in scoring well in the AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator exam. As you gain more hands-on experience, you will be able to troubleshoot these issues more efficiently, thereby optimizing your Azure network performance and stability.
Practice Test
True/False: External networking issues can be corrected within the Azure portal.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: The Azure portal allows users to manage their Azure services, including their networking infrastructure. If an external networking issue arises, it can often be addressed directly within the Azure portal.
Which of these are essential tools in Azure for troubleshooting external networking?
- A. Route Tables
- B. Traffic Manager
- C. Network Watcher
- D. All of the above
Answer: D. All of the above
Explanation: Route Tables, Traffic Manager, and Network Watcher all aid in managing and troubleshooting networks in Azure.
True/False: Azure Network Watcher is a tool that helps to monitor and diagnose conditions at a network scenario level in, to, and from Azure.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Azure Network Watcher is a tool that provides network performance monitoring and diagnostics.
If an Azure virtual machine (VM) is unreachable, which of the following tools can be used for troubleshooting connectivity issues?
- A. Azure Traffic Manager
- B. Connection Monitor
- C. Network Watcher
- D. Azure Load Balancer
Answer: C. Network Watcher
Explanation: Azure Network Watcher is a tool that helps to monitor and diagnose conditions at a network scenario level in, to, and from Azure, including VM connectivity.
True/False: The Next Hop tool in Azure can be used to diagnose the next hop type and IP address based on a specific source and destination.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: The Next Hop tool allows administrators to diagnose the route taken to a destination.
True/False: Network Peering and VPN Gateways are two ways to connect two virtual networks in Azure.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Network Peering and VPN Gateways both provide ways to create highly available network connections between two Azure virtual networks.
Which of the following is not a common use case for Azure Traffic Manager?
- A. Routing incoming traffic for high performance
- B. Disaster recovery
- C. Load balancing
- D. Network security
Answer: D. Network security
Explanation: Though Azure Traffic Manager supports load balancing, high performance routing, and disaster recovery, it does not directly handle network security. For security, other Azure tools and services are more suitable.
True/False: Azure Network Watcher allows you to view outbound connections from a virtual machine.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Connection Troubleshoot, a feature of Azure Network Watcher, allows you to view both inbound and outbound connections for a VM.
In Azure, to troubleshoot DNS issues, which tools can be used?
- A. Network Watcher
- B. Azure DNS
- C. Traffic Manager
- D. All the above
Answer: D. All the above
Explanation: All these tools can be used to troubleshoot DNS issues in Azure.
True/False: You cannot set up alerts on Azure Network Watcher for monitoring and responding to networking conditions.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: Azure Network Watcher does have alerting capabilities. Using Network Performance Monitor and Connection Monitor, you can set up endpoint monitoring and create alerts.
Interview Questions
What is an effective method to troubleshoot connectivity issues in Azure?
Azure Network Watcher is a resource designed to diagnose and visualize metrics and logs for Azure resources. It can be used effectively to troubleshoot connectivity issues.
What is the purpose of IP flow verify in Azure Network Watcher?
IP flow verify is a feature in Azure Network Watcher that checks whether a packet is allowed or denied to or from a virtual Machine. It allows the validation of the direction of IP traffic in Network Security Group.
What will you do to troubleshoot connectivity problems between your on-premises network and your Azure VNets?
You can use the Azure Network Watcher’s VPN diagnostics to troubleshoot connectivity problems between your on-premises network and your Azure VNets.
How can Azure security groups help troubleshoot external networking issues?
Azure security groups contain the network rules that define the incoming and outgoing traffic. Reviewing these rules can help identify if certain traffic is being wrongly permitted or denied, causing the networking issues.
If I suspect a performance issue with my Azure Load Balancer, how can I troubleshoot it?
You can use Azure Monitor and Azure Log Analytics to collect and analyze the performance metrics and activity logs of your Azure Load Balancer.
How to troubleshoot VPN Gateway connections specifically?
You can use the ‘Connection Troubleshoot’ feature of Azure Network Watcher. It provides detailed responses that assist in identifying connectivity issues.
In case of a network slowdown in one of your Azure services, what Azure tool can you use to detect where the network bottleneck is?
You can use Azure Network Watcher’s “Network Performance Monitor” (NPM). It helps in identifying network bottlenecks by monitoring network performance parameters like packet loss and network latency.
What effective method would you use to troubleshoot DNS problems in Azure?
Azure provides DNS query tracing where logs of all DNS requests can be analyzed to identify and troubleshoot DNS problems.
What tool can you use in Azure to trace the route of packets and help diagnose the pathway problems?
You can use the Network Watcher’s Next Hop capability. It allows you to investigate routes that Azure fabric has calculated for your VM and diagnose any incorrect configurations that might be causing connectivity problems.
If a VM in Azure is not receiving an IP address, what might be a potential cause?
The VM may not have an associated Network Interface or a Virtual Network that is configured with a Dynamic IP address. Other possible issues can include failing DHCP or the pool of addresses in the VNet could be depleted.
What tool in Azure provides the ability to diagnose network performance issues between two virtual machines?
The Connectivity Check feature of Azure Network Watcher provides the ability to diagnose network performance issues between two virtual machines.
What is one way to use Azure Traffic Analytics to troubleshoot networking issues?
With Azure Traffic Analytics, you can identify which user, device, or application is consuming the most bandwidth and troubleshoot if it is causing network congestion.
What can be done if a Network Security Group (NSG) rule is suspected of blocking expected network traffic in Azure?
In the Azure portal, you can view the effective security rules to understand the order of the rules being applied and see if that is causing the traffic to be blocked.
How can Azure Monitor help in troubleshooting networking issues in Azure?
Azure Monitor collects, analyzes, and acts on telemetry data from Azure resources. It can provide insights, diagnostics, and alerts in real-time to help recognize and fix network-related issues.
What Azure tool can be used to create visualizations of network resources for better understanding and troubleshooting of the network?
Network Watcher’s topology feature can be used to create visualizations of network resources in Azure for better understanding and troubleshooting of the network infrastructure in Azure.
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