When you have network connections that are critical to your business, it’s important to monitor them at all times. Azure Network Watcher is a collection of network monitoring and troubleshooting tools. Not only does it allow you to set up automated monitoring, but it also gives you a suite of tools that will allow you to diagnose almost any network issue.
In this course, you’ll learn about both troubleshooting and monitoring. We’ll start with the troubleshooting tools: IP Flow Verify, Security Group View, Next Hop, Connection Troubleshoot, and VPN Troubleshoot. Then you’ll see how to use the monitoring and analysis tools: Connection Monitor, Logs, Traffic Analytics, and Network Performance Monitor.
Learning Objectives
- Use Network Watcher’s troubleshooting tools to diagnose Azure networking issues
- Configure Network Watcher’s monitoring tools to alert you when there are critical network issues
- Use Network Watcher’s analysis tools to get a more comprehensive view of networking issues
Intended Audience
- People who want to become Azure cloud architects
- People who are preparing to take Microsoft’s AZ-303 exam
Prerequisites
- Basic knowledge of Azure virtual networks
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If you have a VM that can't connect to something else and you've used IP Flow Verify to make sure that it isn't being blocked by a security group, then you might want to see if it's a routing problem. Network Watcher provides a tool called Next Hop that can help you with that. Let's test the connection from myvm1 to myvm2. I'll use the trick I showed you before to fill it in. I'll put the address from myvm2 in the destination field. Now I'll change this back to myvm1. You don't have to specify a port because we're testing the routing for all ports. Now click Next Hop and wait for a few seconds.
Okay, it says the next hop is a virtual network gateway with this IP address. It also tells you the ID of the route table to determine the next hop. This isn't very much information, is it? The only time this would be helpful is if you were expecting the next hop to be something else. To see the route itself, you have to go the VM. Select Diagnose and Solve Problems. Then click on I Can't Connect to My VM. And finally, click on Effective Routes. Here's the route it used to connect to myvm2. Anything in the 10.2.0.0 address range has to go through this virtual network gateway. If the next hop is what you expected, but you suspect that there might be a routing problem after the first hop, then you can use Network Watcher's Connection Troubleshoot feature, which we'll talk about in the next lesson.
Guy launched his first training website in 1995 and he's been helping people learn IT technologies ever since. He has been a sysadmin, instructor, sales engineer, IT manager, and entrepreneur. In his most recent venture, he founded and led a cloud-based training infrastructure company that provided virtual labs for some of the largest software vendors in the world. Guy’s passion is making complex technology easy to understand. His activities outside of work have included riding an elephant and skydiving (although not at the same time).