IaaS security

Azure is a mature platform for deploying IaaS solutions. There are lots of users of Azure who want complete control over their deployments, and they typically use IaaS for their solutions. It is important that these deployments and solutions are secure, by default and by design. Azure provides rich security features to secure IaaS solutions. In this section, some of the main features will be covered.

Network security groups

The bare minimum of IaaS deployment consists of virtual machines and virtual networks. A virtual machine might be exposed to the internet by applying a public IP to its network interface, or it might only be available to internal resources. Some of those internal resources might, in turn, be exposed to the internet. In any case, virtual machines should be secured so that unauthorized requests should not even reach them. Virtual machines should be secured using facilities that can filter requests on the network itself, rather than the requests...