Azure Network and Caching Roadmap Update

Azure virtual routing, firewall, Web load balancing, and other networking and caching services received significant improvements in Sept. 2016. The services enable organizations to interconnect, secure, and load balance Azure virtual machines (VMs) and other resources. Recent improvements enhance security and throughput and could reduce dependence on third-party networking components for Azure, but some improvements are not ready for production use, and their costs are unknown.

This report is an update to the Directions on Microsoft Azure Roadmap, which provides an overview of Azure services and their likely future development.

Networking Services and Recent Improvements

Azure provides virtual network routing, firewall, Web load balancing, and other networking services. Several services will often be used together in applications. (See the illustration “Azure Network and Caching for a Web Application“.)

Most of these services are not unique: Organizations can buy similar services from providers other than Microsoft or host them in Azure VMs themselves. However, the Azure versions of these services run in the same data centers as Azure applications, and they can be deployed and updated as parts of an Azure-hosted application using the Azure Resource Manager systems management component. Consequently, these services can offer lower latency and simpler management than alternatives for Azure-hosted applications.