Mastering the AZ-700 – Your First Step Toward Azure Network Engineer Certification

As cloud adoption continues to soar, modern organizations increasingly rely on secure, high-performing, and resilient networking infrastructures to support mission-critical workloads. In this context, earning the AZ-700 certification becomes more than just another professional credential—it’s a career-shaping milestone that validates your ability to design, implement, and maintain complex networking solutions on Azure.

Understanding the AZ-700 Certification

The AZ-700 exam is officially titled Designing and Implementing Microsoft Azure Networking Solutions. It is aimed at professionals aspiring to become Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associates. This role is central to ensuring reliable, secure, and scalable cloud-based connectivity in a hybrid or fully cloud-native environment.

Unlike broader Azure certifications that focus on development or administration, AZ-700 dives deep into networking. Candidates are expected to demonstrate fluency in designing and configuring network topologies, integrating hybrid networks, optimizing traffic flow, and applying advanced security mechanisms. It’s not a beginner-level exam—it requires practical experience, strategic thinking, and a strong grasp of both fundamental and advanced networking principles.

Who Should Take the AZ-700 Exam?

This certification is ideal for network engineers, cloud administrators, solution architects, and systems engineers who are already working with Azure or plan to manage enterprise-level cloud networks. It’s also suitable for IT professionals involved in infrastructure planning, connectivity troubleshooting, or designing secure access to Azure services.

To excel in this exam, you should already have a solid understanding of TCP/IP, DNS, VPNs, routing protocols, firewalls, and load balancing concepts. Additionally, hands-on experience with Azure tools like the portal, command-line interface, templates, and policy frameworks will significantly improve your preparation and performance.

Although there are no strict prerequisites, candidates with prior Azure certifications, such as Azure Administrator Associate, or real-world experience in managing Azure networking components will have a distinct advantage.

Overview of Exam Topics and Structure

The AZ-700 exam measures knowledge across five core domains, each representing critical networking responsibilities. Understanding these domains and their interrelationships is essential to passing the test.

Design, Implement, and Manage Hybrid Networking
This section assesses your ability to connect on-premises networks to Azure using technologies like VPN Gateway and ExpressRoute. You’ll need to understand site-to-site and point-to-site connections, authentication models, and failover configurations for resilient connectivity.

Design and Implement Core Networking Infrastructure
Here, you’ll be tested on your knowledge of virtual network configuration, subnets, IP addressing, name resolution, and cross-network communication strategies. Topics like virtual network peering, custom DNS settings, and hub-and-spoke topologies are common.

Design and Implement Routing
This area focuses on configuring user-defined routes, BGP with ExpressRoute, Azure Route Server, and handling traffic flow between services. You’ll also need to understand route prioritization and how to troubleshoot connectivity paths.

Secure and Monitor Networks
Security and observability are critical in cloud networking. This domain examines your ability to implement firewalls, network security groups, application gateways with WAF, DDoS protection, and configure network traffic monitoring with Azure Monitor and Network Watcher.

Design and Implement Private Access to Azure Services
This section evaluates your skill in configuring private endpoints, service endpoints, and Private Link. You’ll be expected to know how to securely expose Azure PaaS services like storage accounts, databases, and web apps to internal networks without traversing the public internet.

The exam typically features 40 to 60 questions, including multiple-choice, drag-and-drop, case studies, and simulation-based scenarios. You’ll have 120 minutes to complete it, and a score of 700 or higher out of 1000 is required to pass.

Why the AZ-700 Certification Matters

Cloud networking is no longer just about connecting virtual machines. It encompasses multi-region failover, hybrid connectivity, application delivery at scale, and safeguarding communications across public and private environments. Businesses are searching for professionals who can engineer network designs that are robust, compliant, and scalable.

This certification serves as proof that you can deliver such solutions. It demonstrates your ability to optimize cloud infrastructure for performance, manage network complexity, and contribute to cost-efficient architectures.

From a career perspective, AZ-700 can help you transition into more strategic roles. Certified professionals often move into positions like network consultant, cloud infrastructure architect, enterprise network designer, or security-focused roles requiring strong networking fluency.

Additionally, the skills you gain during exam preparation often become immediately useful in your current projects. Whether you’re troubleshooting hybrid connections, deploying custom routing logic, or implementing private endpoints, your certification journey enhances your ability to contribute meaningful outcomes.

Preparing for the Exam: The Right Approach

Success in the AZ-700 exam comes down to preparation that blends structured learning, real-world practice, and analytical thinking. This is not an exam where passive learning alone will work. To pass, you need to understand how different Azure services behave in concert and how to select appropriate configurations in various scenarios.

Start with the Domains
The five core areas of the exam should guide your study structure. Create a plan that allocates time to each domain based on your current level of comfort. For example, if you already have extensive experience with hybrid networking, you may want to invest more time in routing or private access topics.

Focus on Use Cases, Not Just Features
Avoid falling into the trap of memorizing what services do. Instead, study how to apply them. For instance, understand when to use ExpressRoute over VPN Gateway, or how to troubleshoot asymmetric routing issues in a hub-and-spoke topology.

Use Real Azure Environments
Theory without application is fragile. Set up a sandbox environment using a free Azure account or an enterprise subscription if available. Deploy virtual networks, configure ExpressRoute gateways, create private endpoints, and simulate traffic across regions. Experimenting with real setups will solidify your conceptual understanding.

Simulate Exam-Like Scenarios
Make use of practice questions that mimic the structure and complexity of the actual exam. Look for questions that involve strategic decision-making, where you must evaluate multiple correct answers and choose the best solution. Simulated scenarios are a powerful way to sharpen your critical thinking and reinforce architectural patterns.

Track and Reflect
Keep a log of concepts that challenge you, such as the configuration of Azure Route Server or the nuances of IP flow verification. Revisit these topics regularly and compare your test results to assess your progress. Self-reflection will help you correct misunderstandings early and deepen your learning over time.

Cultivating a Cloud Networking Mindset

What sets high-performing candidates apart in AZ-700 is not just technical accuracy—it’s the ability to think like a cloud network architect. That means balancing performance with security, choosing scalable over temporary fixes, and foreseeing the downstream impact of design decisions.

For example, enabling a private endpoint might seem straightforward, but you must also consider DNS resolution paths, endpoint limitations, and firewall implications. Similarly, while user-defined routes offer control, they can also introduce complexity that needs close monitoring and version management.

Begin treating every networking decision as a puzzle. Ask yourself what problems a particular solution is solving, what constraints it introduces, and what alternatives exist. This mindset will serve you well not just in passing the exam, but in becoming a trusted voice on your technical team.

Developing Resilience Through Challenges

It’s worth noting that the AZ-700 exam is considered moderately difficult by most professionals. The level of detail expected in questions and the variety of topics covered means that almost everyone finds some aspect challenging.

Don’t let that deter you. Use moments of confusion as invitations to deepen your expertise. Every time you encounter a question you can’t answer, dig into the underlying service or feature until you understand not just how it works, but why it exists.

Practice translating documentation into diagrams. Explain routing behavior to a colleague. Rebuild the same network with different designs and evaluate performance changes. This level of engagement transforms your preparation from passive study into active mastery.

Designing, Implementing, and Managing Hybrid Networking in Azure

As organizations migrate workloads to the cloud, they rarely go all in at once. Most enterprises adopt a hybrid strategy, combining on-premises infrastructure with cloud-hosted services. This brings both flexibility and complexity, especially in the networking layer. The AZ-700 certification exam dedicates a major portion to hybrid networking design and implementation—an area where engineers must build secure, resilient bridges between legacy systems and modern cloud resources.

What Is Hybrid Networking?

Hybrid networking refers to the secure connection of an organization’s on-premises infrastructure with its cloud-based resources. This allows seamless communication across environments, enabling users, applications, and services to interact as if they were all part of the same extended network.

Hybrid networks are essential for companies transitioning to the cloud, handling regulatory constraints, or requiring low-latency access to cloud services while retaining local control of key infrastructure. The challenge lies in ensuring security, reliability, scalability, and performance while maintaining consistent routing and identity policies.

Azure provides several methods to establish hybrid connectivity. The two most prominent are site-to-site VPNs and Azure ExpressRoute. Each method is suited to specific scenarios, depending on performance requirements, costs, and organizational needs.

Site-to-Site VPNs: Connecting Over the Internet

Site-to-site VPNs are often the first choice for establishing hybrid connectivity due to their simplicity and cost-effectiveness. This method creates a secure IPsec tunnel between an on-premises VPN device and an Azure VPN gateway over the public internet.

To configure a site-to-site VPN, you’ll need the following components:

• A virtual network gateway in Azure is configured for VPN

• A compatible on-premises VPN device or firewall that supports IKEv2 and IPsec

• A shared key for authentication

• Defined IP ranges for both Azure and on-premises networks

The Azure VPN gateway is deployed to a specific virtual network subnet and acts as the endpoint for incoming VPN traffic. It supports policy-based or route-based configurations. Most organizations prefer route-based VPNs due to their flexibility and support for dynamic routing with BGP.

The AZ-700 exam expects you to understand configuration options like tunnel redundancy, active-active mode, and bandwidth limitations across different gateway SKUs. You must also be able to troubleshoot connectivity issues, including mismatched pre-shared keys, incorrect routing tables, and misaligned IP address ranges.

Point-to-Site VPNs: Secure Remote Access

While site-to-site VPNs connect networks, point-to-site VPNs connect individual clients to Azure. This method is useful for remote employees, developers, or partners who need secure access to cloud resources from personal devices or temporary locations.

Point-to-site connections use either Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP), IKEv2, or OpenVPN. Azure supports certificate-based authentication, RADIUS, and Azure Active Directory integration for point-to-site VPNs, making it adaptable to enterprise access control strategies.

In a certification context, candidates must know how to configure VPN client profiles, assign certificates, and restrict access to specific subnets or services. You should also understand the implications of split tunneling and forced tunneling, which determine whether internet-bound traffic is routed through the VPN tunnel.

ExpressRoute: Private Connectivity at Scale

For enterprises requiring dedicated, high-performance connections between Azure and on-premises environments, ExpressRoute is the preferred solution. Unlike VPNs, ExpressRoute provides a private connection that does not traverse the public internet, offering better speed, reliability, and security.

ExpressRoute connections can be established through colocation providers, cloud exchange partners, or directly from enterprise edge routers. They support multiple circuits, each with varying bandwidth options from 50 Mbps to 10 Gbps.

The ExpressRoute service connects to a virtual network using the ExpressRoute Gateway, which supports both Microsoft peering and private peering. Microsoft peering allows access to Microsoft services like Azure Storage and Microsoft 365, while private peering is used for secure VNet access.

A key exam area is understanding ExpressRoute circuit provisioning, configuration of peering types, and how BGP is used for route advertisement. Candidates must know how to implement failover using redundant circuits and how to troubleshoot asymmetric routing, which can cause packet drops or latency issues.

Routing in Hybrid Environments

One of the most critical aspects of hybrid networking is managing routing. Without proper route control, traffic may follow inefficient paths or bypass security appliances.

Azure uses system routes by default, but users can override these with user-defined routes. In hybrid scenarios, custom routes often direct traffic through network virtual appliances, firewalls, or dedicated VPN tunnels. You must ensure that address prefixes are non-overlapping, routing loops are avoided, and return paths are valid.

BGP plays a vital role in hybrid routing. It allows dynamic route exchange between Azure and on-premises networks, simplifying route management in environments with frequent changes. Azure VPN gateways and ExpressRoute circuits support BGP, and candidates should understand configuration options like ASN settings, route filtering, and weight adjustments.

The AZ-700 exam may present scenarios where you must choose the appropriate routing solution based on cost, control, and failover capabilities. You’ll also need to evaluate complex setups involving overlapping IP ranges or multiple tunnels.

Redundancy and High Availability

Downtime in hybrid networks can disrupt mission-critical applications, so building for redundancy is essential. Azure offers several mechanisms to ensure high availability.

For VPN gateways, redundancy is achieved using active-active mode with multiple tunnels. This requires BGP and supports up to four tunnels per gateway. It is also possible to configure dual gateways in different regions to enable geo-redundant failover.

ExpressRoute supports redundancy at the circuit level and requires dual physical connections as part of its standard offering. Customers can also use ExpressRoute FastPath for improved routing performance, bypassing the gateway when possible.

The exam may challenge you to design failover mechanisms, select the appropriate gateway SKU, or implement monitoring alerts for degraded tunnel performance. Understanding these concepts in context is vital for success.

Virtual WAN: A Scalable Global Backbone

Virtual WAN is a powerful service designed for enterprises managing global connectivity. It abstracts away the complexity of managing individual VPN gateways, connections, and peerings by centralizing everything into a hub-and-spoke architecture.

In Virtual WAN, hubs act as central points of connectivity, automatically managing VPN, ExpressRoute, and SD-WAN connections. Branch offices, remote users, and Azure regions can all connect to the hub, reducing configuration overhead.

One of the key features of Virtual WAN is its integration with third-party appliances and automation platforms. This allows rapid deployment of hybrid connectivity using templates, policies, and centralized controls.

The AZ-700 exam will assess your understanding of Virtual WAN architecture, how to connect on-premises sites to the hub, and how to optimize traffic flow between branches and cloud services.

You should also know how to configure secure virtual WAN hubs with Azure Firewall and custom route tables, ensuring that traffic policies are enforced consistently across your network.

DNS and Name Resolution Across Environments

Name resolution is often overlooked in hybrid networks, but it is a crucial component of seamless connectivity. Azure provides several DNS options, and the right choice depends on whether you’re resolving cloud, on-premises, or hybrid-hosted names.

Azure automatically provides name resolution for internal VMs using the Azure-provided DNS service. However, in hybrid setups, you often need to forward queries to on-premises DNS servers or enable conditional forwarding.

Private DNS zones are particularly important when using private endpoints or virtual network integrations. You should be able to link these zones to VNets, configure record sets, and manage split-horizon DNS strategies.

Exam questions may present troubleshooting scenarios where name resolution fails due to DNS misconfiguration or improper zone linkage. You’ll need to understand DNS forwarding rules, custom server settings, and host file overrides.

Security Considerations in Hybrid Networking

Security is a non-negotiable element of hybrid networking. Because traffic flows between controlled and uncontrolled environments, maintaining confidentiality and integrity is paramount.

Encryption is standard in VPN tunnels, but proper key management and algorithm selection matter. For ExpressRoute, private circuits reduce exposure but should still be protected with firewalls and intrusion detection.

Azure Network Security Groups and route filters allow you to restrict access to sensitive subnets. Additionally, hybrid environments benefit from Just-in-Time access configurations and diagnostic tools like Traffic Analytics and IP Flow Verify.

In some cases, integrating Azure with on-premises security appliances offers added layers of protection. For example, you might route traffic through an NVA for deep packet inspection or enforce application-level policies using a web application firewall.

The AZ-700 exam may present security incidents where you must choose mitigation strategies, analyze traffic paths, or redesign network flows to isolate vulnerabilities. You’ll also be tested on role-based access, NSG rules, and how to monitor traffic in hybrid paths.

Best Practices for Hybrid Networking in Azure

To succeed both in the exam and real-world implementation, follow these principles:

• Always plan for redundancy and failover. Hybrid networks are complex and prone to single points of failure.

• Avoid overlapping address spaces between on-premises and Azure VNets to prevent routing conflicts.

• Use BGP where possible to simplify route management and support dynamic environments.

• Centralize DNS and route resolution where needed to reduce fragmentation and improve reliability.

• Monitor tunnel health, latency, and packet loss using built-in Azure tools and logs.

• Document all configurations and architectures to ensure smooth handoffs and reduce troubleshooting time.

 

 Designing and Implementing Routing in Microsoft Azure

Routing is the silent backbone of all cloud connectivity. It determines how data travels between virtual networks, across hybrid connections, and through public or private paths to reach its intended destination. In Microsoft Azure, routing takes on added complexity because of the platform’s multi-tenant nature, its abstracted infrastructure, and the interplay of services like VPNs, ExpressRoute, peering, and firewalls.

Why Routing Matters in Azure

In traditional on-premises environments, routing is usually static, manually configured on physical routers, and follows clear physical paths. In Azure, however, routing is software-defined, dynamic, and influenced by multiple layered services. It governs not just the flow of traffic between virtual machines, but also controls how packets move across regions, subscriptions, and connections with external networks.

Without effective routing, Azure workloads can experience broken communication, misrouted packets, increased latency, or exposure to untrusted networks. Understanding routing in Azure means knowing how to enforce security boundaries, ensure compliance, support business continuity, and optimize performance across global architectures.

Azure Route Types: System vs. User-Defined

Azure supports two primary routing types: system routes and user-defined routes. System routes are automatically created by Azure when you deploy virtual networks, subnets, or certain services. These default rules handle basic traffic flows, including internet access, VNet communication, and virtual appliance forwarding.

System routes cannot be deleted or changed, but they can be overridden using user-defined routes. These are custom rules created by administrators to control the flow of traffic. User-defined routes (UDRs) are often used to direct packets through firewalls, NVAs, or third-party services instead of following Azure’s default path.

For example, when implementing an inspection firewall between subnets, a user-defined route can force all outbound traffic to first pass through the appliance. Similarly, when building hub-and-spoke architectures, UDRs are used to consolidate control at the hub.

The AZ-700 exam expects you to understand the behavior of both route types and how to manage precedence when routes conflict.

Understanding Route Tables and Next-Hop Types

In Azure, routes are grouped into route tables, which are then associated with one or more subnets. Each table can contain multiple routes, each with a destination prefix and a next-hop value.

Next-hop types define where Azure should send traffic that matches the destination prefix. The main next-hop types include:

• Virtual appliance: Used to forward traffic to a custom IP address, such as an NVA or third-party firewall.

• Virtual network gateway: Used for hybrid routing to on-premises environments via VPN or ExpressRoute.

• Internet: Sends traffic to the public internet.

• Virtual network: Default behavior that allows internal communication within the VNet.

• None: Blocks traffic to the destination.

It’s crucial to understand how next-hop values interact with services like Azure Firewall, Azure Bastion, and load balancers. Route tables can also be used to control flow for specific application segments, improve isolation, and redirect traffic during failovers.

One common mistake is applying route tables to only one subnet in a communication pair. For routing to work bidirectionally, both sending and receiving subnets may need consistent routing rules.

Route Prioritization and Resolution

When multiple routes match a destination, Azure uses the longest prefix match rule to determine which route to apply. This means that a route with a more specific address range takes precedence over a more general one.

If two routes have identical prefixes, Azure applies a priority order. The general order of precedence is:

1. User-defined routes

2. BGP routes

3. System routes

This order ensures that custom configurations and dynamic routing protocols override Azure’s default behaviors. The AZ-700 exam may present scenarios where you must resolve traffic misdirection by examining this precedence logic.

It is also important to consider propagation behavior. Some services, like VPN Gateway and ExpressRoute, inject BGP routes automatically. If propagation is disabled on a subnet’s route table, these dynamic routes will not be applied, which could cause connectivity issues. Understanding how to selectively enable or block route propagation is critical in hybrid and security-sensitive environments.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) in Azure

BGP is a standardized routing protocol that allows different networks to exchange routing information dynamically. In Azure, BGP is supported by VPN Gateway and ExpressRoute and is widely used in hybrid networking scenarios.

BGP simplifies routing by automatically sharing routes between Azure and on-premises networks. It allows administrators to avoid manual route entry and quickly adapt to changes in topology. For example, if a new subnet is added on-premises, BGP can automatically advertise the updated prefix to Azure.

Azure supports both private ASN and public ASN values for BGP. When connecting with multiple peers, administrators can use BGP weights and path attributes to influence route selection. You can also filter prefixes using BGP communities or prefix lists.

The AZ-700 exam evaluates your ability to configure and troubleshoot BGP sessions. Key concepts include:

• ASN selection and compatibility

• Peering IP addresses and session establishment

• Multi-hop BGP configurations

• Prefix advertisement and filtering

• Troubleshooting route flapping or missing paths

BGP is especially powerful in active-active gateway configurations, where multiple tunnels may exist between Azure and on-premises sites. In such cases, BGP ensures that routing stays consistent and efficient, even in the event of failover.

Routing Scenarios in Hub-and-Spoke Topologies

Hub-and-spoke is one of the most popular network architectures in Azure. In this model, a central hub virtual network acts as a point of connectivity for multiple spoke networks, which contain application resources.

Routing between spokes does not happen automatically, even if peering exists between the spokes and the hub. You must implement UDRs and route tables to allow traffic to flow through the hub, especially if the hub hosts a firewall or gateway.

To enable spoke-to-spoke communication:

• Ensure that each spoke has a route pointing to the hub as the next hop for the other spoke’s address space.

• The hub must allow forwarded traffic, and return paths must be configured correctly.

• If using Azure Firewall in the hub, ensure it has rules that permit cross-spoke communication.

The AZ-700 exam may present diagrams with partially configured route tables, asking you to identify missing routes or recommend optimizations. These questions test your spatial understanding and your ability to reason through multi-hop traffic flows.

Troubleshooting Common Routing Issues

Routing issues are among the most complex to diagnose in Azure. They may manifest as unreachable resources, intermittent failures, or asymmetric paths that lead to security policy violations.

When troubleshooting routing problems, consider the following steps:

• Use Azure Network Watcher’s IP Flow Verify tool to check whether a given source and destination combination is permitted and routed correctly.

• Inspect route tables at both source and destination subnets. Look for missing or incorrect routes.

• Validate that the next-hop IP address is reachable and listening on the expected ports.

• Check NSG rules that may be blocking traffic even though routes are correctly configured.

• Use packet capture and connection troubleshooting tools to observe live traffic and determine where it drops.

Common exam questions may involve resolving connectivity between virtual networks, correcting misconfigured BGP sessions, or analyzing asymmetric routing where packets take different paths in each direction.

Understanding route symmetry is particularly important in scenarios involving firewalls or NVAs. If a packet returns through a different path than it arrived, stateful inspection may fail, causing the connection to break.

Designing Secure and Resilient Routing Paths

Security is not separate from routing—it is part of it. Designing secure routing paths involves ensuring that sensitive data is never exposed to untrusted network,and that traffic is monitored, filtered, and controlled.

This often involves forcing traffic through security appliances using UDRs. For example, outbound traffic from a subnet might be routed through an NVA that performs deep packet inspection before reaching the Internet.

High availability must also be baked into the routing design. Consider the following techniques:

• Deploy redundant NVAs and configure UDRs with failover logic.

• Use BGP for dynamic failover between primary and secondary VPN tunnels.

• Split route tables by function (application, management, DMZ) to reduce complexity.

• Monitor route changes and network health using Azure Monitor and Network Watcher.

Designing routing for scale involves anticipating growth. Use summarized prefixes to reduce the number of advertised routes. Document all route changes and use automation to enforce consistency.

Building Confidence Through Simulation

Because routing is abstract, hands-on practice is crucial. Set up lab environments where you can experiment with route tables, peering, VPN tunnels, and firewalls. Break things on purpose and practice fixing them.

Try recreating common exam scenarios:

• A spoke network cannot reach the Internet. Trace the route and identify missing UDRs.

• A private endpoint cannot resolve its DNS name. Verify route propagation and DNS zone linkage.

• An ExpressRoute connection has established BGP but cannot access a specific subnet. Check prefix filtering and ASN configuration.

These exercises deepen your intuition and prepare you to solve similar problems under exam conditions.

Securing and Monitoring Azure Networks and Enabling Private Access to Services

In cloud networking, security and observability are not optional. As enterprises shift critical workloads to Microsoft Azure, they need to ensure that their infrastructure is protected against threats, monitored for anomalies, and structured to enforce least-privilege access policies. Moreover, the growing demand for private access to cloud services, without exposing traffic to the public interne, —has transformed the way organizations design their cloud network topologies.

The Role of Security in Azure Networking

Every virtual network in Azure represents a trust boundary. Within this boundary, you can isolate workloads, define granular access policies, and route traffic through security appliances. However, security must be intentional—it does not come by default. Azure provides several layers of protection, and knowing how to combine them effectively is essential for any network engineer.

Security in Azure networking typically falls into four layers:

• Network segmentation using virtual networks and subnets

• Traffic control using network security groups

• Perimeter defense using Azure Firewall or third-party NVAs

• Application-level protection using web application firewalls

The AZ-700 exam tests your ability to plan, configure, and troubleshoot these security features within various architecture scenarios.

Network Security Groups (NSGs)

Network security groups are stateful firewall policies applied to network interfaces or subnets. Each NSG contains inbound and outbound rules, defined by protocol, source and destination IPs, ports, and priorities. NSGs provide the first layer of defense in controlling traffic flow between Azure resources.

For the exam, you should be able to:

• Create custom rules that allow or deny specific traffic

• Apply NSGs to subnets and individual virtual machines.

• Understand rule priorities and the concept of the default rule.

• Monitor NSG rule hits using flow logs and diagnostic settings.

A common scenario involves configuring NSGs to restrict communication between frontend and backend subnets, allowing only specific ports and protocols while blocking everything else. You may also be asked to troubleshoot a situation where a misconfigured NSG is blocking legitimate traffic.

Azure Firewall

Azure Firewall is a fully managed, scalable, and highly available stateful firewall. It provides deep packet inspection, threat intelligence-based filtering, and supports both application and network rule collections.

Azure Firewall can be deployed into a central hub in a hub-and-spoke network or isolated subnets for microsegmentation. It integrates with route tables and logs all traffic via Azure Monitor.

Expect the exam to cover the following topics:

• Configuring network and application rules

• Using DNS proxy capabilities to filter outbound FQDNs

• Integrating Azure Firewall with IP groups and service tags

• Setting up threat intelligence to deny traffic from malicious sources

• Logging and analyzing traffic using diagnostic settings

You’ll often encounter architecture-based questions that require you to identify the correct place to insert Azure Firewall or compare it to a network virtual appliance. Understanding when to use Azure Firewall over NSGs or third-party devices is key to choosing the optimal solution.

Application Gateway and Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Application Gateway is a layer 7 load balancer that supports cookie-based session affinity, SSL termination, and web application firewall capabilities. It is best suited for web workloads requiring fine-grained control over HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

WAF protects web applications from common exploits like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and protocol anomalies. It runs in Application Gateway or Azure Front Door and supports custom rulesets.

Key points for AZ-700 include:

• Deploying Application Gateway with WAF in prevention or detection mode

• Understanding WAF policies, rule groups, and exclusion settings

• Configuring path-based routing and multiple listeners

• Troubleshooting backend health probes and SSL issues

You may encounter questions that combine WAF with private endpoints, front-end public IPs, or backend pools that span multiple virtual networks. Understanding how Application Gateway integrates with virtual networks and other services is crucial.

DDoS Protection

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks aim to overwhelm network resources with excessive traffic. Azure provides two tiers of protection—basic and standard. Basic protection is always on and shields Microsoft-managed endpoints. Standard DDoS protection extends enhanced mitigation policies to your virtual networks.

With DDoS Protection Standard, you gain features like attack analytics, mitigation tuning, and integration with Azure Monitor.

Exam objectives related to DDoS protection include:

• Enabling and configuring DDoS Protection plans

• Associating DDoS with specific VNets

• Viewing mitigation reports and attack analytics

• Understanding thresholds and automatic detection

You may be presented with a scenario where public-facing endpoints are under attack, and you must recommend the correct combination of WAF, DDoS, and firewall controls.

Monitoring Azure Networks

Monitoring is a foundational skill for any cloud network engineer. It enables proactive troubleshooting, auditing, and optimization. Azure offers a range of tools to capture and analyze network telemetry.

Some of the most important tools include:

• Azure Monitor: Centralized platform for collecting metrics and logs

• Network Watcher: Provides packet capture, IP flow verification, topology views, and connection troubleshooting

• NSG Flow Logs: Captures traffic metadata for every packet accepted or denied by NSGs

• Traffic Analytics: Visualizes and analyzes NSG flow logs to detect anomalies and usage patterns

• Azure Metrics Explorer: Allows you to view performance counters like throughput, latency, and availability..

The AZ-700 exam will test your ability to enable diagnostic settings, interpret logs, and resolve network performance issues. For example, you may need to determine why a connection between a VM and a database is failing, using tools like IP Flow Verify or Connection Troubleshoot.

You should also be familiar with enabling log analytics workspaces, using Kusto Query Language (KQL), and configuring alerts for unusual traffic patterns or high CPU usage on firewalls.

Designing and Implementing Private Access to Azure Services

The final domain of the AZ-700 exam focuses on ensuring that traffic to Azure services remains private, especially when dealing with sensitive data or regulated workloads. Azure offers multiple options to achieve this, depending on the service and use case.

Private access prevents data from traversing the public internet, reducing exposure to external threats and improving compliance posture. The three primary technologies involved are service endpoints, private endpoints, and Azure Private Link.

Azure Service Endpoints

Service endpoints extend Azure service IP ranges into your virtual network. When you enable a service endpoint on a subnet, traffic to the selected Azure service remains within Microsoft’s backbone network instead of going over the internet.

Supported services include storage accounts, Azure SQL Database, Key Vault, Cosmos DB, and many others.

Exam-relevant topics include:

• Enabling service endpoints on subnets

• Configuring firewall rules to allow only traffic from a specific virtual network

• Understanding service tag limitations and IP ranges

• Using network policies to block or allow specific endpoint access

Service endpoints are easy to configure and maintain, but they do not offer full network isolation. They also rely on IP filtering, which may not meet strict compliance requirements.

Azure Private Endpoints

Private endpoints provide a network interface that connects you privately to a specific Azure service instance. Unlike service endpoints, private endpoints use a private IP address from your VNet and provide true network isolation.

Private endpoints are supported by most PaaS services and are configured through Private Link. You can use DNS zone integration to ensure name resolution works seamlessly with the private IP.

For the AZ-700 exam, be prepared to:

• Configure private endpoints for services like Storage, SQL, and Web Apps

• Link private DNS zones and manage DNS forwarding

• Understand subnet placement, IP address management, and NIC behavior. or

• Compare private endpoints with service endpoints in terms of security and performance.e

You may also be asked to troubleshoot scenarios where private endpoint connections fail due to missing DNS records or misconfigured NSG rules.

Azure Private Link

Private Link is the underlying technology that powers private endpoints. It enables secure connections to Azure services, partner services, or customer-owned services across virtual networks and regions.

With Private Link, you can expose services hosted in one VNet to another organization or subscription while keeping traffic entirely on the Microsoft backbone. This is particularly valuable for SaaS providers or B2B platforms.

Exam scenarios involving Private Link may include:

• Publishing custom services through Private Link Service

• Managing access approvals and the connection lifecycle

• Understanding the limits and constraints of Private Link configurations

• Using network security policies to protect private links from unauthorized access

Properly implementing Private Link requires careful planning of IP address ranges, DNS integration, and security rules to ensure reliability and clarity for users and applications.

Final Design Considerations

Designing secure and private networking solutions in Azure is a balancing act between complexity, performance, and compliance. Use these guiding principles:

• Isolate workloads using subnets and apply NSGs to reduce the blast radius

• Route traffic through Azure Firewall for centralized control

• Enable WAF for public-facing applications to block common attacks.

• Use DDoS Protection for any internet-exposed endpoint.t

• Monitor continuously using built-in tools to detect and respond to threats.

• Prefer private endpoints over service endpoints for sensitive workload

• Link private DNS zones correctly and validate name resolution across regions

• Document network flows and monitor for unexpected changes

Conclusion: 

Passing the AZ-700 exam certifies more than technical knowledge—it proves your ability to think critically, design solutions strategically, and secure environments holistically. As organizations increase their cloud footprints, your role as an Azure Network Engineer becomes essential to both stability and innovation.

The knowledge gained through preparing for AZ-700 applies to real-world scenarios daily. Whether configuring complex hybrid architectures, implementing failover strategies, or ensuring compliance through private networking, you now have the tools to lead.

But certification is not the end—it’s a doorway. Use your momentum to pursue advanced roles in cloud architecture, security, or hybrid operations. Keep experimenting, stay curious, and never stop refining your craft.

You’ve mastered the fundamentals. Now go build the future.

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• Tags: AZ-700, azure, certification, Engineer, network