VPN Gateway topology and design

  • Article

There are many different configuration options available for VPN Gateway connections. To help you select the connection topology that meets your requirements, use the diagrams and descriptions in the following sections. The diagrams show the main baseline topologies, but it's possible to build more complex configurations using the diagrams as guidelines.

Site-to-site VPN

A site-to-site (S2S) VPN gateway connection is a connection over IPsec/IKE (IKEv1 or IKEv2) VPN tunnel. Site-to-site connections can be used for cross-premises and hybrid configurations. A site-to-site connection requires a VPN device located on-premises that has a public IP address assigned to it.

Diagram of site-to-site VPN Gateway cross-premises connections.

You can create more than one VPN connection from your virtual network gateway, typically connecting to multiple on-premises sites. When working with multiple connections, you must use a RouteBased VPN type. Because each virtual network can only have one VPN gateway, all connections through the gateway share the available bandwidth. This type of connectivity design is sometimes referred to as multi-site.

Diagram of site-to-site VPN Gateway cross-premises connections with multiple sites.

If you want to create a design for highly available gateway connectivity, you can configure your gateway to be in active-active mode. This mode lets you configure two active tunnels (one from each gateway virtual machine instance) to the same VPN device to create highly available connectivity. In addition to being a highly available connectivity design, another advantage of active-active mode is that customers experience higher throughputs.

Deployment models and methods for S2S

Deployment model Azure portal PowerShell Azure CLI
Resource Manager Tutorial Tutorial Tutorial

Point-to-site VPN

A point-to-site (P2S) VPN gateway connection lets you create a secure connection to your virtual network from an individual client computer. A point-to-site connection is established by starting it from the client computer. This solution is useful for telecommuters who want to connect to Azure virtual networks from a remote location, such as from home or a conference. Point-to-site VPN is also a useful solution to use instead of site-to-site VPN when you have only a few clients that need to connect to a virtual network.

Unlike site-to-site connections, point-to-site connections don't require an on-premises public-facing IP address or a VPN device. Point-to-site connections can be used with site-to-site connections through the same VPN gateway, as long as all the configuration requirements for both connections are compatible. For more information about point-to-site connections, see About point-to-site VPN.

Diagram of point-to-site connections.

Deployment models and methods for P2S

Authentication method Article
Certificate Tutorial
How-to
Microsoft Entra ID How-to
RADIUS How-to

P2S VPN client configuration

Authentication Tunnel type Client OS VPN client
Certificate
IKEv2, SSTP Windows Native VPN client
IKEv2 macOS Native VPN client
IKEv2 Linux strongSwan
OpenVPN Windows Azure VPN client
OpenVPN client version 2.x
OpenVPN client version 3.x
OpenVPN macOS OpenVPN client
OpenVPN Linux Azure VPN Client
OpenVPN client
Microsoft Entra ID
OpenVPN Windows Azure VPN client

VNet-to-VNet connections (IPsec/IKE VPN tunnel)

Connecting a virtual network to another virtual network (VNet-to-VNet) is similar to connecting a virtual network to an on-premises site location. Both connectivity types use a VPN gateway to provide a secure tunnel using IPsec/IKE. You can even combine VNet-to-VNet communication with multi-site connection configurations. This lets you establish network topologies that combine cross-premises connectivity with inter-virtual network connectivity.

The virtual networks you connect can be:

  • in the same or different regions
  • in the same or different subscriptions
  • in the same or different deployment models

Diagram of VNet-to-VNet connections.

Deployment models and methods for VNet-to-VNet

Deployment model Azure portal PowerShell Azure CLI
Resource Manager Tutorial+ Tutorial Tutorial

(+) Denotes this deployment method is available only for VNets in the same subscription.

In some cases, you might want to use virtual network peering instead of VNet-to-VNet to connect your virtual networks. Virtual network peering doesn't use a virtual network gateway. For more information, see Virtual network peering.

Site-to-site and ExpressRoute coexisting connections

ExpressRoute is a direct, private connection from your WAN (not over the public Internet) to Microsoft Services, including Azure. Site-to-site VPN traffic travels encrypted over the public Internet. Being able to configure site-to-site VPN and ExpressRoute connections for the same virtual network has several advantages.

You can configure a site-to-site VPN as a secure failover path for ExpressRoute, or use site-to-site VPNs to connect to sites that aren't part of your network, but that are connected through ExpressRoute. Notice that this configuration requires two virtual network gateways for the same virtual network, one using the gateway type Vpn, and the other using the gateway type ExpressRoute.

Diagram of ExpressRoute and VPN Gateway coexisting connections.

Deployment models and methods for S2S and ExpressRoute coexisting connections

Deployment model Azure portal PowerShell
Resource Manager Supported Tutorial

Highly available connections

For planning and designing highly available connections, including active-active mode configurations, see Design highly available gateway connectivity for cross-premises and VNet-to-VNet connections.

Next steps