Mastering Azure at Scale: Why AVNM Is a Game-Changer for Network Management

 

In today’s dynamic cloud-first landscape, managing distributed and large-scale network infrastructures has become increasingly complex. As enterprises expand their digital footprint across multiple Azure subscriptions and regions, the demand for centralized, scalable, and policy-driven network governance becomes critical. Azure Virtual Network Manager (AVNM) emerges as a strategic solution enabling unified control, automation, and security enforcement across diverse environments.

 

 Key Challenges in Large Scale Network Management

• Managing multiple VNETs increases operational complexity 

• Decentralized security approaches may leave vulnerabilities 

• Validating network changes becomes more critical as VNETs grow 

• IP address consumption requires efficient management solutions 

• Complex network topologies demand simplified peering strategies.  

 

 What is Azure Virtual Network Manager (AVNM) 

 

AVNM is a centralized network management service in Azure that allows you to: 

• 🌐 Group and manage virtual networks across multiple subscriptions and regions. 

• 🔐 Apply security and connectivity configurations (like hub-and-spoke or mesh topologies) at scale. 

• ⚙️ Automate network configuration using static or dynamic membership (via Azure Policy). 

• 📊 Enforce organization-wide security rules that can override standard NSG rules. 

• 🛠️ Deploy changes regionally with control over rollout sequence and frequency. 

 

AVNM is especially useful for large enterprises managing complex, multi-region Azure environments, helping reduce operational overhead and improve consistency in network security and connectivity  

 

Use Case of AVNM:

 

1) Network Segmentation and Connectivity Features: AVNM allows network segmentation into development, production, testing, or team-based groups, and supports static and dynamic grouping. Connectivity configuration features include hub-and-spoke, mesh, and direct connectivity topologies, simplifying the creation and management of complex network topologies.  

 

• Network Segmentation Features: Segment networks into Dev, Prod, Test, or team groups. Group VNets and subnets at subscription, management group, or tenant level. Use static or dynamic grouping with name or tags. Basic Editor allows editing ID/Tags/Resource Groups/Subscription conditions with GUI. Advanced Editor specifies flexible criteria with JSON. Membership changes reflect automatically in configurations. Apply configurations to network groups.  

• Network Group Management: Simplified management of network groups. Manually pick VNets for static membership. Azure Policy notifies for dynamic membership. Diagrams illustrate segmentation into multiple production nodes and flowchart shows managing VNets and applying dynamic membership through Azure Policy.  

• Connectivity Configuration Features: Create different topologies with a few clicks. Topologies include Hub and Spoke, Mesh, and Hub-and-Spoke with direct connectivity. Diagrams illustrate connections between nodes. Use cases highlight gateways, firewalls, and common infrastructure shared by spoke virtual networks in the hub. Emphasizes less hop and lower latency connectivity across regions, subscriptions, and tenants.  

 

 

 

 

 

2) Security Configuration Features: Admin rules enforce organizational-level security policies, applied to all resources in desired network groups, and can overwrite conflicting rules. User rules managed by AVNM allow micro-segmentation and conflict-free rules with modularity. Security admin rules work with NSGs, evaluated prior to NSG rules, ensuring consistent, high-priority network security policies globally.  

• Admin Rules and User Rules: Admin rules target network admins and central governance teams, applying security policies at a high level and automatically to new VMs. User rules, managed by AVNM, are designed for product/service teams, enabling micro-segmentation and modular, conflict-free rules.  

• Security Admin Rules and NSGs: Security admin rules are evaluated before NSG rules, ensuring high-priority network security. They can allow, deny, or always allow traffic. Allowed and denied traffic can be viewed in VNet flow logs.  

• Comparison of Security Admin Rules and NSG Rules: Security admin rules, applied by network admins, enforce organizational security with higher priority. NSG rules, applied by individual teams, offer flexibility within the guard rail and operate with lower priority.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Virtual Network Verifier: AVNM Network Verifier prevents errors through compliance checking, simplifies debugging, enhances network management, allows role-based access, and offers detailed analysis and reporting. AVNM IPAM creates pools for IP address planning, automatically assigns non-overlapped CIDRs, reserves IPs for specific demands, and prevents Azure address space from overlapping on-premises/multi-cloud environments.  

• Virtual Network Verifier's Goal: Virtual Network Verifier aims to assist with virtual network management by providing diagnostics, security compliance, and guard rail checks. It includes a diagram of a virtual network setup involving ExpressRoute, VNet connections, Virtual WAN, and SD-WAN branches with remote users. An illustration shows a person using a magnifying glass and checkmarks for successful verification and a red cross for failures.  

• Benefits of using AVNM Network Verifier: AVNM Network Verifier offers verification of network configurations, simplified debugging, enhanced network management, flexible and delegated access, and detailed analysis and reporting. A diagram visually represents the scope of the AVNM instance and its role in network verification.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) IPAM: AVNM IPAM creates pools for IP address planning, automatically assigns non-overlapped CIDRs, reserves IPs for specific demands, and prevents Azure address space from overlapping on-premises/multi-cloud environments.  

• Benefits of using AVNM IPAM: AVNM IPAM benefits include creating pools for IP address planning, automatically assigning non-overlapped CIDRs, reserving IPs for specific demands, preventing Azure address space from overlapping with on-premises or multi-cloud environments, and enforcing users to create VNets with no overlap CIDR. A diagram shows the distribution of IP pools between two organizations, highlighting the non-overlapping nature of their CIDRs.  

• View allocations for an IP address pool: Users can view allocation details for an IP address pool, including how many IPs are allocated to subnets, CIDR blocks, etc., and how many IPs are consumed by Azure resources like VMs or VMSSs. A screenshot of the Azure portal interface shows the allocation and usage of IP addresses within an address pool.  

 

 

 

 

 Historically, AVNM pricing was structured around Azure subscriptions, which often limited flexibility for customers managing diverse network scopes. With the latest update, pricing is now aligned to virtual networks empowering customers with greater control and adaptability in how they adopt AVNM across their environments.

 

 

 

 

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network-manager/overview#pricing 

 

Azure Virtual Network Manager (AVNM) is a game-changer for network management, offering centralized control, enhanced security, and simplified connectivity configurations. Whether you're managing a small network or a complex multi-region environment, AVNM provides the tools and features needed to streamline operations and ensure robust network security.