Cloud Networking, IT Atlas

Overview

Cloud networking reimplements familiar primitives as API objects. Virtual networks and subnets define address space, route tables direct traffic, security groups filter it, and gateways or private endpoints provide controlled reachability to services and on premises networks.

Hybrid connectivity uses IPSec VPN for simplicity or a private circuit, ExpressRoute, Direct Connect, Cloud Interconnect, for capacity and consistent latency, with BGP exchanging routes in both cases.

Security considerations

Use private endpoints or service endpoints so managed data services are not reachable from the public internet.
Enable flow logs and centralise them; without them, cloud network investigation is impossible.

Related topics

Cloud Computing

On demand delivery of compute, storage, networking and platform services over a network, billed by consumption and managed through APIs.

Subnetting & CIDR

Dividing IP address space into right sized networks using prefix length notation, so that routing, segmentation and growth all remain manageable.

Routing

Forwarding packets between networks by selecting the best available path from a route table.

Firewalls

Policy enforcement points that permit or deny traffic between network zones based on connection state, identity and application context.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft's public cloud platform, tightly integrated with Entra ID and Microsoft 365, organised through management groups, subscriptions and resource groups.

Amazon Web Services

The largest public cloud platform, organised around accounts within AWS Organizations, with IAM as the central authorisation system.

Load Balancing

Distributing client requests across multiple backend servers to provide scale, resilience and maintainability.

BGP

The path vector protocol that exchanges reachability between autonomous systems and, increasingly, inside data centre fabrics.

Hybrid & Multi Cloud

Operating across on premises and cloud, or across multiple clouds, with consistent identity, networking, security and operations.

Network Architecture

The structural design of an organisation's networks: segmentation, routing, redundancy, edge services and policy enforcement points.

Azure Environment Architecture

A landing zone pattern for Azure: management group hierarchy, subscription strategy, hub and spoke networking, policy baseline and centralised logging.