Azure Network Engineer — Complete Learning Package
Hands-On Labs (1–50)
- Create VNet with subnets and verify IP ranges
- Configure NSG rules (allow/deny)
- Implement VNet peering (same region + cross-region)
- Configure UDR routing via NVA
- Deploy Azure Bastion (no public IP access)
- Deploy Azure Load Balancer (public + internal)
- Deploy Application Gateway with WAF
- Configure SSL termination
- Deploy Azure Front Door (multi-region routing)
- Configure Azure DNS (public + private)
- Deploy VPN Gateway (S2S + P2S)
- Deploy ExpressRoute Gateway
- Deploy Azure Firewall (Standard + Premium)
- Configure IDPS and TLS inspection
- Implement Private Endpoints (Storage + SQL)
- Configure NAT Gateway
- Enable DDoS Protection
- Deploy Virtual WAN (hub-spoke)
- Use Network Watcher (IP Flow Verify, Next Hop)
- Configure NSG Flow Logs + Traffic Analytics
- Create Connection Monitor
- Build hub-spoke with Firewall
- Configure BGP routing
- Implement Azure Firewall Manager
- Configure split-brain DNS
- Deploy active-active VPN Gateway
- Build multi-region network
- Implement zero-trust network
- Deploy Route Server
- Build ExpressRoute + VPN hybrid
- Configure Firewall DNS proxy
- Build AKS networking
- Build IoT network with Private Endpoints
- Create monitoring dashboards
- Automate diagnostics
- Full enterprise network deployment
- Complete documentation
Major Projects
Core Networking
- Enterprise hub-spoke network
- Multi-region Virtual WAN
- Hybrid connectivity (ExpressRoute + VPN)
- Zero-trust architecture
- AKS networking design
Industry Use Cases
- Financial services network (PCI DSS)
- Healthcare network (HIPAA)
- IoT network (10K+ devices)
- Gaming low-latency network
- Media streaming (CDN + Front Door)
Advanced Architectures
- Multi-cloud networking (Azure + AWS)
- Private Link architecture
- Firewall + WAF deployment
- Network observability platform
- Full enterprise network implementation
Gotchas & Common Mistakes
- VNet peering is NOT transitive
- NSG priority is absolute (lower number wins)
- GatewaySubnet name must be exact
- AzureFirewallSubnet requires /26 minimum
- Private Endpoint requires DNS configuration
- NSG propagation delay (~1 minute)
- ExpressRoute doesn't provide internet by default
- VNet peering incurs data transfer cost
- App Gateway requires dedicated subnet
- VPN Gateway: use route-based, not policy-based
- DNS TTL impacts failover speed
- Network Watcher must be same region
- UDR requires IP for virtual appliance
- Azure Firewall forced tunneling must be set at deployment
- Private Endpoint disables network policies on subnet
- Front Door health probes affect routing
- Traffic Manager failover depends on DNS TTL
- Azure Firewall rule evaluation order matters
- NSG max rules limit (5000)
- Private DNS auto-registration only for VMs
Network Design Playbook
- Gather requirements (bandwidth, latency, HA, security)
- Choose topology (hub-spoke, Virtual WAN, mesh)
- Plan IP addressing (no overlaps, scalable)
- Design connectivity (internet, hybrid, multi-region)
- Define security (Firewall, WAF, NSG, Private Endpoints)
- Plan DNS (public, private, split-brain)
- Set up monitoring (flow logs, Network Watcher)
- Document architecture (diagrams, IP plans)
- Implement via IaC (Bicep/Terraform)
- Continuously monitor and optimize