Virtual network

A virtual network should be thought of as a physical LAN network in your office or home. Conceptually, they both are the same, although the Azure virtual network is implemented as a software-defined network backed up by a giant physical network infrastructure.

A virtual network is required for hosting a virtual machine. They provide a secure communication mechanism between Azure resources to connect to each other. They provide an internal IP address to them, access, and connectivity to other resources including virtual machines on the same virtual network, routing of requests, and connectivity to other networks.

A virtual network is contained within a resource group and is hosted within a region, for example, West Europe. Virtual network cannot span multiple regions, but it can span all data centers with a region. For connectivity across regions, virtual networks can be connected using the VNET-to-VNET connectivity. The virtual network also helps in connecting to on-premise data centers enabling hybrid cloud. There are multiple types of VPN technologies available to connect to on-premise data centers such as site-to-site VPN and point-to-site VPN. There is also a dedicated connectivity available between Azure virtual network and on-premise network using ExpressRoute.

A virtual network is free of charge. Every subscription can create up to 50 virtual networks across all regions. However, it can be increased by reaching out to Azure support. There will be no charge for data transfer within a VNET