Introduction

Welcome to MCA Microsoft® Certified Associate Azure® Network Engineer Study Guide. This book offers a firm grounding for Microsoft's Exam AZ-700: Designing and Implementing Microsoft Azure Networking Solutions. This introduction provides a basic overview of this book and the Microsoft Certified Associate AZ-700 exam.

What Is Azure?

Organizations worldwide can become more digitally connected with Microsoft Azure, and networking can transform their processes. In a cloud environment, networking as a service provides scale, speed, elasticity, and managed oversight to customers. The network engineer's role continues to evolve in the cloud landscape as professionals migrate workloads to the cloud, manage hybrid connectivity, empower remote workers, and support strategic scenario-led digital transformations.

About the AZ-700 Certification Exam

The AZ-700 certification exam tests your knowledge and understanding of Microsoft Azure networking solutions. Specifically, the certification aims to validate your expertise in designing, deploying, and maintaining Azure networking solutions, including hybrid networking, routing, security, connectivity, and private access to Azure services.

You will be tested on your capabilities to translate requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable cloud network design and deployment of networking solutions.

Why Become a Certified Microsoft Azure Network Engineer Associate?

Would you like to demonstrate your Microsoft Azure networking skills and experience to your company or clients by planning, designing, deploying, and managing their Azure networking solutions?

Because Microsoft certification is a globally recognized and industry-endorsed proof of mastering real-world skills, those with such a certification are known to be more productive and efficient. Microsoft certifications differentiate you by proving your broad set of skills and experience with current Microsoft network solutions.

A Microsoft certification exam is a great way to demonstrate your level of expertise and build your résumé. You can validate your product knowledge and experience by taking the Microsoft certification AZ-700 exam.

During and following the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, many testing organizations changed their on-site testing procedures, some even offering remote exam proctoring. In light of this, be sure you check with Microsoft's website and the provider where you plan to take the exam prior to registration and again prior to exam day for the latest, up-to-the-minute changes in exam site procedures.

Preparing to Become a Certified Microsoft Azure Network Engineer Associate

Exam takers should have expertise in planning, implementing, and maintaining Azure networking solutions because the exam benchmarks your ability in these areas: hybrid networking; core networking infrastructure; routing; networking; and VPN access to Azure services.

The best preparation for the exam is by studying and hands-on practice. By studying this book, you will learn the necessary information and skills to prepare for the Azure Network Engineer Associate Certification AZ-700.

We recommend planning to devote 10 weeks or so of intensive study for the AZ-700 exam. Here are some recommendations to maximize your learning time; you can modify this list as necessary based on your own learning experiences:

• Get hands on with the Azure portal daily, read articles about Azure, and learn Azure networking terminology.
• Take one or two evenings to read each chapter in this book and work through its review materials.
• Answer all the review questions and take the practice exam provided on the book's website.
• Complete the exercises for each chapter.
  • Review the Microsoft Azure AZ-700 skills measured on Microsoft's page for this exam at:

    https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE4PaHw

  • You'll find a "skills measured" section on every exam and Microsoft certification page. Listed below are the primary skills that will be assessed for the AZ-700 exam. A detailed outline can be downloaded from the Microsoft site for this exam.
    • Design, implement and manage hybrid networking.
    • Design and implement core networking infrastructure.
    • Design and implement routing.
    • Secure and monitor networks.
    • Design and implement private access to Azure services.
• Use the flashcards included with the online study tools for this book to reinforce your understanding of concepts.
• Take free hands-on learning courses on Microsoft Learn at:

  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/design-implement-microsoft-azure-networking-solutions-az-700

• Read the Microsoft Azure documentation at:

  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/?product=popular

How to Become a Microsoft Certified Azure Network Engineer

You can register for your exam from the Microsoft Certification AZ-700 exam details page once you are prepared:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-700

On the certification details page, you'll find the choice to register in the "Schedule Exam" section.

You can take the exam online or at a local testing center, so you need to choose a test center or use online proctoring. There are advantages to each. Local test centers provide a secure environment. By taking your exam online, you can take it almost anywhere at any time. However, a reliable connection and a secure browser are required. When you take your test online, your system will first be checked to be sure it meets the requirements.

Who Should Buy This Book

Anybody who wants to pass the Microsoft AZ-700 exams will benefit from reading this book. If you're new to Azure networking, this book covers the material you will need to learn starting from the basics. It continues by providing the knowledge you need up to a proficiency level sufficient to pass the AZ-700 exams. You can pick up this book and learn from it even if you've never used Azure networking before, although you'll find it an easier read if you've at least casually used networking or virtual networking for a few days. If you're already familiar with networking, this book can serve as a review and a refresher course for the information you might not be entirely aware of. Reading this book will help you pass the Microsoft AZ-700 exams in either case.

This book is written with the assumption that you know at least a little bit about Azure and basic networking: what it is, and specifically what virtual machines, TCP/IP, the Domain Name System (DNS), virtual private networks (VPNs), firewalls, software-defined networking (SDN), wide area networks (WANs), and encryption technologies are. We also assume that you know some basics about creating Azure login accounts or setting up your Azure subscription. You can still use this book to fill in gaps in your knowledge.

How This Book Is Organized

This book consists of 10 chapters plus supplementary information. The chapters are organized as follows:

• Chapter 1, "Getting Started with AZ-700 Certification for Azure Virtual Networking," covers the basics of cloud networking, introduction to Azure virtual networks, configuring public IP address services, designing name resolution for your virtual network, enabling cross-virtual network connectivity with peering, deploying virtual network traffic routing, and configuring Internet access with Azure virtual NAT.
• Chapter 2, "Design, Deploy, and Manage a Site-to-Site VPN Connection and Point-to-Site VPN Connection," covers designing a site-to-site VPN connection, building and configuring a virtual network gateway, how to choose a virtual network (VNet) gateway SKU that is appropriate for your network, how to use policy-based VPN versus route-based VPN, building and configuring a local network gateway and IPsec/IKE policy, preparing and configuring RADIUS authentication, certificate-based authentication, OpenVPN authentication, and Azure Active Directory authentication, deploying a VPN client configuration file, diagnosing and resolving VPN gateway connectivity issues, and diagnosing and resolving client-side and authentication issues.
• Chapter 3, "Design, Deploy, and Manage Azure ExpressRoute," covers how to choose between the network service provider and direct model (ExpressRoute Direct), designing and deploying Azure cross-region connectivity between multiple ExpressRoute locations, how to choose an appropriate ExpressRoute SKU and tier, designing and deploying ExpressRoute Global Reach, designing and deploying ExpressRoute FastPath, evaluating between private peering only, Microsoft peering only, or both, how to set up private peering, how to set up Microsoft peering, building and configuring an ExpressRoute gateway, connecting a virtual network to an ExpressRoute circuit, recommending a route advertisement configuration, configuring encryption over ExpressRoute, deploying bidirectional forwarding detection, and diagnosing and resolving ExpressRoute connection issues.
• Chapter 4, "Design and Deploy Core Networking Infrastructure: Private IP and DNS," covers designing private IP addressing to VNets,...