application traffic steering

Application Traffic Steering

Application Traffic Steering

In today's digital world, where online applications play a vital role in our personal and professional lives, ensuring their seamless performance and user experience is paramount. This is where Application Traffic Steering comes into play. In this blog post, we will explore Application Traffic Steering, how it works, and its importance in optimizing application performance and user satisfaction.

Application Traffic Steering is the process of intelligently directing network traffic to different application servers or resources based on predefined rules. It efficiently distributes incoming requests to multiple servers, ensuring optimal resource utilization and responsiveness.

Application traffic steering involves intelligently directing network traffic to ensure optimal performance and resource utilization. By leveraging advanced algorithms and network intelligence, it enables efficient data transmission and improves application responsiveness.

Enhanced User Experience: By dynamically routing traffic based on application requirements and network conditions, application traffic steering minimizes latency and packet loss. This results in a seamless user experience, with faster load times and smoother interactions.

Improved Network Performance: Efficient traffic steering optimizes network resources, reducing congestion and bottlenecks. By intelligently distributing traffic across available paths, it prevents overutilization of specific links, ensuring a balanced and reliable network infrastructure.

Increased Security and Reliability: Application traffic steering can enhance security by routing traffic through secure gateways or firewalls. It also enables redundancy and failover mechanisms, ensuring continuous service availability even in the event of network disruptions.

Load Balancing: Load balancing evenly distributes network traffic across multiple servers, ensuring optimal resource utilization. It can be accomplished through various algorithms, such as round-robin, least connections, or weighted distribution.

Quality of Service (QoS): QoS techniques prioritize specific types of traffic based on predefined rules. By allocating network resources accordingly, it guarantees a certain level of performance for critical applications or services.

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): CDNs employ application traffic steering to deliver content from geographically distributed servers. By serving content from the nearest server to the user, CDNs minimize latency and improve download speeds.

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, application traffic steering plays a pivotal role in optimizing user experiences, enhancing network performance, and ensuring reliability. By intelligently routing traffic and leveraging various techniques like load balancing, QoS, and CDNs, organizations can unlock the full potential of their applications while delivering seamless and efficient services.

Highlights: Application Traffic Steering

Understanding Application Traffic Steering:

A: ) Application traffic steering refers to the strategic routing and distribution of network traffic to different applications or services within a network infrastructure. It involves directing traffic flows based on various factors, such as performance, availability, security, and user-defined policies. This dynamic process optimizes resource utilization and helps deliver an exceptional user experience.

B: ) Application traffic steering, traffic management, or load balancing intelligently distributes network traffic to multiple servers or resources to enhance efficiency and availability. By dynamically redirecting traffic based on predefined rules or algorithms, organizations can ensure seamless user experiences and prevent the overloading of specific servers. A network engineer manipulates your network to suit your traffic.

C: ) Steering policies can be configured for individual applications based on the application name, category, signature, URL, and domain. After classifying traffic, it can be directed along the available paths. The Application Steering strategy provides finer granularity for routing traffic than traditional destination-based routing. Furthermore, multiple applications can be steered from the same port and destination with Application Steering.

-Enhanced Performance: By efficiently distributing network traffic, application traffic steering optimizes resource usage, reduces response times, and improves application performance. Users experience faster loading times, lower latency, and seamless interactions with the application.

-Improved Scalability: Application traffic steering facilitates horizontal scaling, allowing organizations to handle increased traffic loads without sacrificing performance. Organizations can scale their resources by intelligently distributing traffic across multiple servers, ensuring smooth operations during peak usage.

High Availability: Application traffic steering allows organizations to achieve high availability by intelligently routing traffic away from overloaded or malfunctioning servers. By seamlessly redirecting traffic to healthy servers, organizations can minimize downtime and ensure uninterrupted application access.

Understanding Squid Proxy

Squid Proxy, an open-source caching and forwarding HTTP web proxy, acts as an intermediary between clients and servers. It enhances performance by caching frequently accessed web content, reducing bandwidth usage, and improving response times. Its versatility and extensive features make it a popular choice for individuals and organizations alike.

1. Enhanced Speed and Performance:

By caching frequently accessed web content, Squid Proxy significantly reduces the load on servers, resulting in faster response times and improved overall browsing speed.

2. Bandwidth Optimization:

Squid Proxy optimizes bandwidth usage by compressing data, filtering out unwanted content, and implementing advanced caching algorithms. This leads to a more efficient utilization of available bandwidth resources.

3. Content Filtering and Security:

One of the notable features of Squid Proxy is its ability to filter web content based on predefined rules. This empowers network administrators to control access tospecific websites, block malicious content, and ensure a safer browsing environment.

Techniques for Application Traffic Steering

Load Balancing: Load balancing is a foundational technique in application traffic steering. It involves distributing incoming network traffic across multiple servers, ensuring optimal resource utilization, and preventing bottlenecks. Load balancing can be achieved through various methods, such as round-robin, least connections, or weighted distribution, depending on the specific needs of the network infrastructure.

Content-based Routing: Content-based routing directs traffic based on specific criteria within the application payload. This technique enables intelligent decision-making by examining the content of incoming requests and routing them to appropriate servers or resources. By leveraging factors such as URL, headers, or session information, content-based routing ensures efficient handling of diverse application traffic.

Geographic Traffic Steering: Geographic traffic steering focuses on redirecting network traffic based on geographic location. By considering factors such as user proximity, latency, or data center availability, organizations can route traffic to the nearest or most suitable servers. This technique minimizes latency, improves response times, and enhances overall user experience.

Example: Load Balancing with HAProxy

Understanding HAProxy

HAProxy, which stands for High Availability Proxy, is an open-source load balancer and proxy server. It acts as an intermediary between client requests and backend servers, distributing traffic and optimizing resource utilization. Its lightweight and high-performance nature make it a top choice for many organizations.

HAProxy offers a plethora of features that contribute to its effectiveness in web traffic management. From load balancing algorithms, SSL termination, to health checks and session persistence, HAProxy provides comprehensive solutions to handle diverse traffic scenarios. Its scalability, flexibility, and robustness make it an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes.

One of the notable advantages of HAProxy is its extensive configuration options. Administrators can fine-tune and customize various aspects of traffic management, including routing rules, request and response manipulation, and logging. The flexibility to adapt HAProxy to specific requirements empowers organizations to optimize their web infrastructure efficiently.

Google Cloud NEGs

**Understanding the Role of Network Endpoint Groups**

Network Endpoint Groups serve as a collection of endpoints that facilitate the distribution and management of network traffic. They come in handy when dealing with applications that require precise traffic steering across distributed environments. In the context of Google Cloud, NEGs can include both VM instances and non-VM endpoints, enabling a versatile approach to traffic management. By defining specific endpoints within a NEG, businesses can ensure that their applications are responsive and resilient, even under varying network conditions.

**Application Traffic Steering with Google Cloud**

One of the primary advantages of Network Endpoint Groups is their ability to steer application traffic effectively. Google Cloud provides a robust set of tools to configure and manage NEGs, allowing businesses to dynamically route traffic based on predefined policies. This capability is particularly beneficial for applications that require low latency and high availability. By leveraging NEGs, organizations can direct traffic to the nearest or most responsive endpoints, optimizing user experience and resource utilization.

**Implementing NEGs for Enhanced Scalability**

Scalability is a critical consideration for any business operating in the digital landscape. Network Endpoint Groups offer an efficient way to scale applications by distributing traffic across multiple endpoints. This distribution not only enhances performance but also provides a level of redundancy that can protect against endpoint failures. With Google Cloud’s integrated tools, businesses can easily adjust their network architecture to accommodate increased demand, ensuring that their applications remain available and performant.

**Best Practices for Managing Network Endpoint Groups**

To maximize the benefits of Network Endpoint Groups, it’s important to adhere to best practices in their implementation and management. Start by clearly defining your traffic management goals and configuring NEGs to align with these objectives. Regularly monitor traffic patterns and adjust endpoint configurations as needed to maintain optimal performance. Additionally, take advantage of Google Cloud’s load balancing and health-checking features to ensure that traffic is always directed to healthy endpoints.

network endpoint groups

Understanding Load Balancing in Google Cloud

Load balancing in GCP is a fundamental concept that allows applications to scale, handle increased traffic, and ensure seamless user experiences. Google Cloud offers two primary types of load balancers: Network Load Balancer and HTTP Load Balancer. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Network Load Balancer: Network Load Balancer is designed to distribute traffic at the transport layer (Layer 4) by forwarding requests to backend instances based on IP address and port. It is suitable for protocols such as TCP and UDP, making it ideal for handling non-HTTP workloads. Setting up a Network Load Balancer involves several steps, including configuring forwarding rules, backend services, and health checks.

HTTP Load Balancer: HTTP Load Balancer operates at the application layer (Layer 7) and provides advanced load balancing features for HTTP and HTTPS traffic. It offers content-based routing, SSL termination, session affinity, and URL mapping capabilities. To set up an HTTP Load Balancer, you need to define backend services, target pools, forwarding rules, and configure SSL certificates if necessary.

### The Need for Cross-Region Load Balancing

Cross-region load balancing is crucial for businesses with a global reach. It enables seamless user experiences by routing traffic to the closest available server, thus reducing latency and improving load times. Additionally, it provides redundancy, ensuring that if one region experiences an outage, traffic can be rerouted to other healthy regions, maintaining the application’s availability.

### Google Cloud’s Approach to Load Balancing

Google Cloud offers a robust suite of load balancing solutions that are designed to handle the complexities of cross-region traffic distribution. Google’s HTTP(S) load balancer is a fully distributed, software-defined, managed service that supports global load balancing with a single anycast IP address. It automatically routes incoming requests to the nearest healthy backend, ensuring optimal performance and high availability.

### Setting Up Cross-Region Load Balancing on Google Cloud

To implement cross-region HTTP load balancing on Google Cloud, you need to:

1. **Create a Load Balancer:** Use the Google Cloud Console to set up a new HTTP(S) load balancer. This involves configuring the frontend, backend, and health check settings.

2. **Configure Backend Services:** Define backend services that will distribute traffic to the instances in your chosen regions. You can also set up autoscaling to dynamically adjust the number of instances based on traffic demands.

3. **Set Up URL Maps and Host Rules:** Customize how traffic is routed by setting up URL maps and host rules. This allows you to direct traffic to specific services based on the URL path or host name.

4. **Test and Monitor:** Once your setup is complete, test the load balancer to ensure it’s distributing traffic as expected. Google Cloud provides monitoring tools to help track performance and detect any issues.

cross region load balancing

Understanding SD-WAN Traffic Steering

SD-WAN traffic steering intelligently directs network traffic across multiple paths to ensure optimal performance and reliability. It involves analyzing network conditions, application requirements, and other factors to make informed routing decisions. SD-WAN traffic steering provides enhanced performance and flexibility by dynamically routing traffic based on real-time conditions.

Load Balancing: Load balancing is a fundamental traffic steering technique in SD-WAN. It involves distributing traffic across multiple paths to avoid congestion and maximize bandwidth utilization. SD-WAN devices intelligently monitor network conditions and dynamically adjust traffic distribution, ensuring efficient utilization of available resources.

Application-Aware Routing: Traditional routing techniques treat all traffic equally, regardless of the application type or priority. However, SD-WAN introduces application-aware routing, where traffic is routed based on application requirements. By prioritizing critical applications and allocating network resources accordingly, SD-WAN optimizes performance and user experience.

Performance-Based Routing: SD-WAN leverages performance-based routing to dynamically select the best path for network traffic. This technique continuously monitors factors such as latency, jitter, and packet loss to assess the quality of each available path. SD-WAN ensures consistent and reliable performance by intelligently routing traffic through the most optimal path.

Policy-Based Routing: Policy-based routing allows network administrators to define specific rules and policies for traffic steering. These policies are based on factors such as application type, user groups, or security requirements. SD-WAN devices enforce these policies to route traffic according to the predefined rules, providing granular control over network traffic.

Understanding EIGRP Load Balancing

– EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) is a dynamic routing protocol widely used in enterprise networks. Load balancing refers to the distribution of traffic across multiple paths, allowing for efficient utilization of available network resources. EIGRP load balancing achieves this by dividing traffic between numerous equal-cost paths, ensuring optimal utilization and enhancing network performance.

– Several factors must be considered to enable load balancing in EIGRP. First, the network topology must have multiple paths with equal metrics. This can be achieved by adjusting link costs or using equal-cost multipath (ECMP) techniques. Second, the router interfaces involved in load balancing should be configured to support it. This typically involves enabling EIGRP and specifying load-balancing parameters such as maximum-paths and variance.

– EIGRP offers different load-balancing algorithms to distribute traffic across multiple paths. These algorithms include per-packet load balancing, per-destination load balancing, and per-source/destination load balancing. Each algorithm has advantages and considerations, depending on the network requirements and characteristics. Understanding these algorithms is crucial for effective load-balancing implementation.

EIGRP Configuration

Understanding BGP AS Prepend

AS Prepending is a method for influencing routing path selection by adding additional AS numbers to the AS_PATH attribute. By manipulating the AS_PATH, network administrators can influence BGP routers to prefer specific paths. This technique is beneficial for directing traffic away from congested or underperforming links.

AS Prepending offers several advantages in network optimization. Firstly, distributing traffic across multiple paths allows for better load balancing. By strategically prepending AS numbers, you can encourage BGP routers to select alternate paths, optimizing network performance. Secondly, AS Prepending helps in traffic engineering, enabling you to control traffic flow and avoid congestion. Lastly, this technique improves network resilience by providing redundancy and failover capabilities.

BGP AS Prepend

Advanced Topics

Shortest-path routing

Every dynamic network backbone has some congested links, while others still need to be utilized. That’s because shortest-path routing protocols transmit traffic down the shortest path without regarding other network parameters, such as utilization and traffic demands. So, we need to employ application traffic engineering or traffic steering to use our network links.

Using Traffic Engineering (TE), we can redistribute packet flows to attain a more uniform distribution across all links in our network. Forcing traffic onto specific pathways lets you get the most out of your current network capacity while making it easier to deliver consistent service levels.

SDN-based Architecture

Many protocol combinations produce an SDN-based architecture to enable application traffic steering; native OpenFlow is only one of those protocols. Some companies view OpenFlow as a core SDN design component while others don’t even include it, aka BGP SDN controller and BGP SDN. For example, the Forwarding and Control Element Separation ( ForCES) working group has spent several years working on mechanisms for separating the control and data plane.

The role of OpenFlow

They created their southbound protocol and didn’t use OpenFlow to connect the data and control planes. On the other hand, NEC was one of the first organizations to take full advantage of the OpenFlow protocol. The market’s acceptance of SDN use cases has created products that fall into an OpenFlow or non-OpenFlow bucket. The following post discusses traffic steering that outright requires OpenFlow.

The OpenFlow protocol offers additional granular control to steer traffic through an ordered list of user-specific services. A task that traditional IP destination-based forwarding struggles to do efficiently. OpenFlow offers additional flow granularity and provides topology-independent service insertion required by network overlays, such as a VXLAN. 

What is OpenFlow

Understanding OpenFlow Traffic Steering

OpenFlow traffic steering involves intelligently directing network traffic flows within an SDN environment. By separating the control plane from the data plane, OpenFlow allows for centralized management and programmability of network devices. This enables granular control over routing decisions, flow prioritization, and traffic optimization.

Enhanced Network Flexibility: OpenFlow traffic steering empowers administrators to adapt and reconfigure their networks to meet changing demands dynamically. This flexibility improves scalability, reduces network congestion, and enhances overall network performance.

Efficient Traffic Management: With OpenFlow, traffic can be intelligently routed based on specific criteria such as quality of service (QoS), latency requirements, or security policies. This fine-grained control optimizes network utilization, minimizes packet loss, and improves end-to-end performance.

Simplified Network Operations: OpenFlow simplifies network operations by centralizing network control, reducing the complexity associated with traditional distributed routing protocols. Administrators can define traffic policies and implement changes across the network from a single management interface, thus streamlining network management tasks.

Implementing OpenFlow Traffic Steering

Network Infrastructure Requirements: Organizations need compatible network devices that support the OpenFlow protocol to implement OpenFlow traffic steering. These devices include OpenFlow-enabled switches and routers, which can be sourced from various vendors.

OpenFlow Controller Selection: It is crucial to select an appropriate OpenFlow controller. Popular choices include OpenDaylight, Ryu, and Floodlight. The OpenFlow controller acts as the brain of the network, managing traffic and enforcing policies based on predefined rules.

Rule Definition and Flow Configuration: Network administrators must define traffic flow rules within the OpenFlow controller. These rules specify how traffic should be handled, including routing decisions, QoS parameters, and any required packet modifications. Careful planning and rule design are essential to achieving desired traffic steering outcomes.

Related: You may find the following helpful post for pre-information.

  1. WAN Design Considerations
  2. What is OpenFlow
  3. BGP SDN
  4. Network Security Components
  5. Network Traffic Engineering
  6. Application Delivery Architecture
  7. Technology Insights for Microsegmentation
  8. Layer 3 Data Center
  9. IPv6 Attacks

The Role of Load Balancers:

Load balancing serves as the backbone of Application Traffic Steering. They act as intermediaries between clients and servers, receiving incoming requests and distributing them across multiple servers based on specific algorithms. These algorithms consider server load, response time, and availability to make informed decisions.

Application Traffic Steering Techniques:

1. Round Robin: This algorithm distributes traffic evenly across all available servers in a cyclic manner. While it is simple and easy to implement, it does not consider server load or response times, which may result in uneven distribution and suboptimal performance.

2. Least Connections: This algorithm directs traffic to the server with the fewest active connections at a given time. It ensures optimal resource utilization by distributing traffic based on the server’s current load. However, it doesn’t consider server response times, which may lead to slower performance on heavily loaded servers.

3. Weighted Round Robin: This algorithm assigns weights to servers based on their capabilities and performance. Servers with higher weights receive a larger share of traffic, enabling organizations to prioritize specific servers over others based on their capacity.

Multicast Traffic Steering

Multicast traffic steering is a technique for efficiently directing data packets to multiple recipients simultaneously. It is beneficial in scenarios where a single source needs to transmit data to various destinations. Instead of sending individual copies of the data to each recipient, multicast traffic steering enables the source to transmit a single copy efficiently distributed to all interested recipients.

Lab Guide on IGMPv1

IGMPv1 is a communication protocol that enables hosts on an Internet Protocol (IP) network to join and leave multicast groups. Multicast groups allow the simultaneous transmission of data packets from a single sender to multiple recipients.

By utilizing IGMPv1, hosts can efficiently manage their participation in multicast groups and receive relevant data from senders.

Below, we have one router and two hosts. We will enable multicast routing and IGMP on the router’s Gigabit 0/1 interface.

    • First, we enabled multicast routing globally; this is required for the router to process IGMP traffic.
    • We enabled PIM on the interface. PIM is used for multicast routing between routers and is also required for the router to process IGMP traffic.

IGMPv1

debug ip igmp
Diagram: Debug IP IGMP

Benefits of Multicast Traffic Steering:

1. Bandwidth Efficiency:

Multicast traffic steering reduces network congestion and optimizes bandwidth utilization. By transmitting a single copy of the data, it minimizes the duplication of data packets, resulting in significant bandwidth savings. This is especially advantageous in scenarios where large volumes of data must simultaneously be transmitted to multiple destinations, such as video streaming or software updates.

2. Scalability:

In networks with many recipients, multicast traffic steering ensures efficient data delivery without overwhelming the network infrastructure. Instead of creating a separate unicast connection for each recipient, multicast traffic steering establishes a single multicast group, reducing the burden on the network and enabling seamless scalability.

3. Reduced Network Latency:

Multicast traffic steering reduces network latency by eliminating the need for multiple unicast connections. Data packets are delivered directly to all interested recipients, minimizing the delay caused by establishing and maintaining individual connections for each recipient. This is particularly crucial for real-time applications, such as video conferencing or live streaming, where low latency is essential for a seamless user experience.

Traditional Layer 2 and Layer 3 Service Insertion

Example: Traditional Layer 2

In a flat Layer 2 environment, everybody can reach each other by their MAC address. There is no IP routing. If you want to intercept traffic, the switch in the middle must intercept and forward to a service device, such as a firewall.

The firewall doesn’t change anything; it’s a transparent bump in the wire. You would usually insert the same service in both directions so the firewall will see both directions of the TCP session. Service insertion at Layer 2 is achieved with VLAN chaining.

For example, VLAN-1 is used on one side and VLAN-2 on the other; different VLAN numbers link areas. VLAN chaining is limited and impossible to implement for individual applications. It is also an excellent source for creating network loops. You may encounter challenges when firewalls or service nodes do not pass the Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU). Be careful to use this for large-scale service insertion production environments.

Example: Layer 3 Service Insertion

Layer 3 service insertion is much safer as forwarding is based on IP headers, not Layer 2 MAC addresses. Layer 3 IP headers have a “time-to-live” field that prevents loops from looping around the network. Layer 2 frames are redirected to a transparent or inter-subnet appliance.

This means the firewall device can do a MAC header rewrite on layer 2, or if the firewall is placed in different subnets, the MAC rewrite would be automatic as you will be doing layer 3 forwardings. Layer 3 service insertion is typically implemented with Policy-Based Routing (PBR).

Traffic Steering

“User-specific services may include firewall, deep packet inspection, caching, WAN acceleration and authentication.”

Application traffic steering, service function chaining, and dynamic service insertion

Application traffic steering, service function chaining, and dynamic service insertion functionally mean the same thing. They want to insert networking functions based on endpoints or applications in the forwarding path.

Service chaining applies a specific list of ordered services (service changing) to individual traffic flows. The main challenge is the ability to steer traffic to various devices. Such devices may be physical appliances or follow the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) format.

Designing with traditional mechanisms leads to cumbersome configurations and multiple device touchpoints. For example, service appliances that need to intercept and analyze traffic could be centralized in a data center or service provider network. Service centralization results in users’ traffic “tromboning” to the central service device for interaction.

Traffic tromboning

Traffic tromboning may not be an issue for data center leaf and spine architecture with equidistant endpoints. However, other aggregated network designs that don’t follow the leaf and spine model may run into interesting problems. A central service network point also represents a “choking point” and may increase path latency. Service integration should be flexible and not designed with a “meet me” architecture.

  • The requirement for “flow” level granularity

Traditional routing is based on destination-based forwarding and cannot provide the granularity needed for topology-independent traffic steering. You may implement tricks with PBR and ACL, but they increase complexity and have vendor-specific configurations. Efficient traffic steering requires a granular “flow” level of interaction, which is not offered by default destination-based forwarding.

The requirement for large-scale cloud networks drives multitenancy, and network overlays are becoming the defacto technology used to meet this requirement. Network overlays require new services to be topology-independent.

Unfortunately, IP routing is limited, and different types of traffic going to the same destination cannot be distinguished. Traffic steering based on traditional Layer 2 or 3 mechanisms is inefficient and does not allow dynamic capabilities.

application traffic steering
Diagram: Application traffic steering

SDN Adoption

A single OpenFlow rule pushed down from the central SDN controller provides the same effect as complex PBR and ACL designs. Traffic steering is accomplished with OpenFlow at an IP destination or IP flow layer of granularity. This dramatically simplifies network operations as there is no need for PBR and ACL configurations. There is less network and component state as all the rules and intelligence are maintained at the SDN central controller.

A holistic viewpoint enables singular points for configuration, not numerous touchpoints throughout the network. A virtual switch, such as the Open vSwitch, can be used for data. It is a multi-layered switch that is highly well-featured.

There are alternatives for pushing ACL rules down to network devices, such as RFC 5575 and Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules. It works with a BGP control plane (BGP flow spec) that can install rules and ACL to network devices.

One significant difference between BGP flow spec and OpenFlow for traffic steering is that the OpenFlow method has a central control policy. BGP flow spec consists of several distributed devices, and configuration changes will require multiple touchpoints in the network.

Summary: Application Traffic Steering

In today’s digital age, where connectivity is paramount, efficient application traffic steering ensures optimal performance and user experience. This blog post explores the various aspects of application traffic steering and its significance in the modern landscape.

What is Application Traffic Steering?

Application traffic steering intelligently directs network traffic to different applications or services based on predetermined rules or conditions. It involves the efficient distribution of traffic to achieve load balancing, improve reliability, and enhance overall application performance.

Load Balancing for Enhanced Performance

One of the primary objectives of application traffic steering is load balancing. Efficient distribution of traffic across multiple servers or data centers prevents any single point of failure and ensures high availability. Load-balancing algorithms intelligently analyze server health, capacity, and response times to direct traffic and optimize resource utilization.

Traffic Steering Techniques

Various techniques are employed for application traffic steering. One common approach is DNS-based traffic steering, where the Domain Name System is leveraged to direct users to different IP addresses based on specific criteria. Another technique is layer 4 load balancing, which operates at the transport layer of the network stack and distributes traffic based on IP addresses and port numbers.

Content-Aware Traffic Steering

Content-aware traffic steering takes traffic steering to the next level by analyzing the actual content of the application traffic. This technique enables intelligent routing decisions based on application performance, user location, security requirements, and network conditions. It helps optimize the user experience by dynamically adapting to changing network conditions.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs)

ADCs are specialized devices or software solutions that are key in application traffic steering. They act as intermediaries between clients and servers, providing advanced traffic management functionalities such as load balancing, SSL offloading, caching, and security. ADCs enable organizations to efficiently manage application traffic while ensuring maximum performance, scalability, and security.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, application traffic steering is vital for optimizing application performance, enhancing user experience, and ensuring high availability. With the ever-increasing demand for seamless connectivity and robust applications, mastering application traffic steering is paramount. By leveraging various techniques and utilizing advanced tools like ADCs, organizations can confidently navigate the digital highway, delivering reliable and exceptional user experiences.

vnet1

Azure ExpressRoute

Azure ExpressRoute

In today's ever-evolving digital landscape, businesses are increasingly relying on cloud services for their infrastructure and data needs. Azure ExpressRoute, a dedicated network connection provided by Microsoft, offers a reliable and secure solution for organizations seeking direct access to Azure services. In this blog post, we will dive into the world of Azure ExpressRoute, exploring its benefits, implementation, and use cases.

Azure ExpressRoute is a private connection that allows businesses to establish a dedicated link between their on-premises network and Microsoft Azure. Unlike a regular internet connection, ExpressRoute offers higher security, lower latency, and increased reliability. By bypassing the public internet, organizations can experience enhanced performance and better control over their data.

Enhanced Performance: With ExpressRoute, businesses can achieve lower latency and higher bandwidth, resulting in faster and more responsive access to Azure services. This is especially critical for applications that require real-time data processing or heavy workloads.

Improved Security: ExpressRoute ensures a private and secure connection to Azure, reducing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access. By leveraging private connections, businesses can maintain a higher level of control over their data and maintain compliance with industry regulations.

Hybrid Cloud Integration: Azure ExpressRoute enables seamless integration between on-premises infrastructure and Azure services. This allows organizations to extend their existing network resources to the cloud, creating a hybrid environment that offers flexibility and scalability.

Provider Selection: Businesses can choose from a range of ExpressRoute providers, including major telecommunications companies and internet service providers. It is essential to evaluate factors such as coverage, pricing, and support when selecting a provider that aligns with specific requirements.

Connection Types: Azure ExpressRoute offers two connection types - Layer 2 (Ethernet) and Layer 3 (IPVPN). Layer 2 provides a flexible and scalable solution, while Layer 3 offers more control over routing and traffic management. Understanding the differences between these connection types is crucial for successful implementation.

Global Enterprises: Large organizations with geographically dispersed offices can leverage Azure ExpressRoute to establish a private, high-speed connection to Azure services. This ensures consistent performance and secure data transmission across multiple locations.

Data-Intensive Applications: Industries dealing with massive data volumes, such as finance, healthcare, and research, can benefit from ExpressRoute's dedicated bandwidth. By bypassing the public internet, these organizations can achieve faster data transfers and real-time analytics.

Compliance and Security Requirements: Businesses operating in highly regulated industries, such as banking or government sectors, can utilize Azure ExpressRoute to meet stringent compliance requirements. The private connection ensures data privacy, integrity, and adherence to industry-specific regulations.

Conclusion: Azure ExpressRoute opens up a world of possibilities for businesses seeking a secure, high-performance connection to the cloud. By leveraging dedicated network links, organizations can unlock the full potential of Azure services while maintaining control over their data and ensuring compliance. Whether it's enhancing performance, improving security, or enabling hybrid cloud integration, ExpressRoute proves to be a valuable asset in today's digital landscape.

Highlights: Azure ExpressRoute

What is Azure ExpressRoute?

Azure ExpressRoute provides a private and dedicated connection between on-premises infrastructure and the Azure cloud. Unlike a regular internet connection, ExpressRoute offers a more reliable and consistent performance by bypassing public networks. It allows businesses to extend their network into the Azure cloud and access various services with enhanced speed and reduced latency.

a) Enhanced Network Performance: By bypassing the public internet, ExpressRoute offers low-latency connections, ensuring faster data transfers and improved application performance. This is particularly beneficial for bandwidth-intensive workloads and real-time applications.

b) Improved Security: With ExpressRoute, data exchanges between on-premises infrastructure and Azure occur over a private connection, reducing the exposure to potential security threats. This added layer of security is crucial for organizations dealing with sensitive and confidential data.

c) Scalability and Flexibility: ExpressRoute enables businesses to scale their network connectivity as their needs grow. Whether it’s expanding to new regions or increasing bandwidth capacity, ExpressRoute provides the necessary flexibility to accommodate changing requirements.

Setting up Azure ExpressRoute

a) Connectivity Models: Azure ExpressRoute supports two connectivity models – Network Service Provider (NSP) and Exchange Provider (IXP). NSP connectivity involves partnering with a network service provider to establish the connection, while IXP connectivity allows direct peering with Azure at an internet exchange point.

b) Prerequisites and Configuration: Before setting up ExpressRoute, organizations need to meet certain prerequisites, such as having an Azure subscription and establishing peering relationships. Configuration involves defining routing settings, setting up virtual networks, and configuring the ExpressRoute circuit.

Use Cases for Azure ExpressRoute

a) Hybrid Cloud Environments: ExpressRoute is ideal for organizations that operate in a hybrid cloud environment, integrating on-premises infrastructure with Azure. It enables seamless data transfers and allows businesses to leverage the benefits of both private and public cloud environments.

b) Big Data and Analytics: For data-intensive workloads, such as big data analytics, ExpressRoute provides a high-bandwidth and low-latency connection to Azure, ensuring efficient data processing and analysis.

c) Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: ExpressRoute plays a crucial role in disaster recovery scenarios by providing a reliable and dedicated connection to Azure. Organizations can replicate their critical data and applications to Azure, ensuring business continuity in case of unforeseen events.

Azure Networking

Using Azure Networking, you can connect your on-premises data center to the cloud using fully managed and scalable networking services. Azure networking services allow you to build a secure virtual network infrastructure, manage your applications’ network traffic, and protect them from DDoS attacks. In addition to enabling secure remote access to internal resources within your organization, Azure network resources can also be used to monitor and secure your network connectivity globally.

With Azure, complex network architectures can be supported with robust, fully managed, and dynamic network infrastructure. A hybrid network solution combines on-premises and cloud infrastructure to create public access to network services and secure application networks.

Azure Virtual Network

Azure Virtual Network, the foundation of Azure networking, provides a secure and isolated environment for your resources. It lets you define your IP address space, create subnets, and establish connectivity to your on-premises network. With Azure Virtual Network, you have complete control over network traffic flow, security policies, and routing.

Azure Load Balancer

In a world where high availability and scalability are paramount, Azure Load Balancer comes to the rescue. This powerful tool distributes incoming network traffic across multiple VM instances, ensuring optimal resource utilization and fault tolerance. Whether it’s TCP or UDP traffic or public or private load balancing, Azure Load Balancer has you covered.

Azure Virtual WAN

Azure Virtual WAN simplifies network connectivity and management for organizations with geographically dispersed branches. By leveraging Microsoft’s global network infrastructure, Virtual WAN provides secure and optimized connectivity between branches and Azure resources. It seamlessly integrates with Azure Virtual Network and offers features like VPN and ExpressRoute connectivity.

Azure Firewall

Network security is a top priority, and Azure Firewall rises to the challenge. Acting as a highly available, cloud-native firewall-as-a-service, Azure Firewall provides centralized network security management. It offers application and network-layer filtering, threat intelligence integration, and outbound connectivity control. With Azure Firewall, you can safeguard your network and applications with ease.

Azure Virtual Network

Azure Virtual Networks (Azure VNets) are essential in building networks within the Azure infrastructure. Azure networking is fundamental to managing and securely connecting to other external networks (public and on-premises) over the Internet.

Azure VNet goes beyond traditional on-premises networks. In addition to isolation, high availability, and scalability, It helps secure your Azure resources by allowing you to administer, filter, or route traffic based on your preferences.

Peering between Azure VNets

Peering between Azure Virtual Networks (VNets) allows you to connect several virtual networks. Microsoft’s infrastructure and a secure private network connect the VMs in the peer virtual networks. Resources can be shared and connected directly between the two networks in a peering network.

Azure currently supports global VNet peering, which connects virtual networks within the same Azure region, instead of global VNet peering, which connects virtual networks across Azure regions.

A virtual wide area network powered by Azure

Azure Virtual WAN is a managed networking service that offers networking, security, and routing features. It is made possible by the Azure global network. Various VPN connectivity options are available, including site-to-site VPNs and ExpressRoutes.

For those who prefer working from home or other remote locations, virtual WANs assist in connecting to the Internet and other Azure resources, including networking and remote user connectivity. Using Azure Virtual WAN, existing infrastructure or data centers can be moved from on-premises to Microsoft Azure.

ExpressRoute

Internet Challenges

One of the primary culprits behind sluggish internet performance is the occurrence of bottlenecks. These bottlenecks can happen at various points along the internet infrastructure, from local networks to internet service providers (ISPs) and even at the server end. Limited bandwidth can also impact internet speed, especially during peak usage hours when networks become congested. Understanding these bottlenecks and bandwidth limitations is crucial in addressing internet performance issues.

The Role of Latency

While speed is essential, it’s not the only factor contributing to a smooth online experience. Latency, often measured in milliseconds, is critical in determining how quickly data travels between its source and destination. High latency can result in noticeable delays, particularly in activities that require real-time interaction, such as online gaming or video conferencing. Various factors, including distance, network congestion, and routing inefficiencies, can contribute to latency issues.

ExpressRoute Azure

Using Azure ExpressRoute, you can extend on-premises networks into Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure over a private connection. This networking service allows you to connect your on-premises networks to Azure. You can connect your on-premises network with Azure using an IP VPN network with Layer 3 connectivity, enabling you to connect Azure to your own WAN or data center on-premises.

There is no internet traffic with Azure ExpressRoute since the connection is private. Compared to public networks, ExpressRoute connections are faster, more reliable, more available, and more secure.

a) Enhanced Security: ExpressRoute provides a private connection, making it an ideal choice for organizations dealing with sensitive data. By avoiding the public internet, companies can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access and potential security breaches.

b) High Performance: ExpressRoute allows businesses to achieve faster data transfers and lower latency than standard internet connections. This is particularly beneficial for applications that require real-time data processing, such as video streaming, IoT solutions, and financial transactions.

c) Reliable and Consistent Connectivity: Azure ExpressRoute offers uptime Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and guarantees a more stable connection than internet-based connections. This ensures critical workloads and applications remain accessible and functional even during peak usage.

Use Cases for Azure ExpressRoute

a) Hybrid Cloud Environments: ExpressRoute enables organizations to extend their on-premises infrastructure to the Azure cloud seamlessly. This facilitates a hybrid cloud setup, where companies can leverage Azure’s scalability and flexibility while retaining certain workloads or sensitive data within their own data centers.

b) Big Data and Analytics: ExpressRoute provides a reliable and high-bandwidth connection to Azure’s data services for businesses that heavily rely on big data analytics. This enables faster and more efficient data transfers, allowing organizations to extract real-time actionable insights.

c) Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: ExpressRoute can be instrumental in establishing a robust disaster recovery strategy. By replicating critical data and applications to Azure, businesses can ensure seamless failover during unforeseen events, minimizing downtime and maintaining business continuity.

You may find the following helpful post for pre-information:

  1. Load Balancer Scaling
  2. IDS IPS Azure
  3. Low Latency Network Design
  4. Data Center Performance
  5. Baseline Engineering
  6. WAN SDN 
  7. Technology Insight for Microsegmentation
  8. SDP VPN

Azure ExpressRoute

Let it to its defaults. When you deploy one Azure VPN gateway, two gateway instances are configured in an active standby configuration. This standby instance delivers partial redundancy but is not highly available, as it might take a few minutes for the second instance to arrive online and reconnect to the VPN destination.

For this lower level of redundancy, you can choose whether the VPN is regionally redundant or zone-redundant. If you utilize a Basic public IP address, the VPN you configure can only be regionally redundant. If you require a zone-redundant configuration, use a Standard public IP address with the VPN gateway.

 

The following table lists ExpressRoute locations;

Azure ExpressRoute

Azure Express Route and Encryption

Azure ExpressRoute does not offer built-in encryption. For this reason, you should investigate Barracuda’s cloud security product sets. They offer secure transmission and automatic path failover via redundant, secure tunnels to complete an end-to-end cloud solution. Other 3rd-party security products are available in Azure but are not as mature as Barracuda’s product set.

Internet Performance

Connecting to Azure public cloud over the Internet may be cheap, but it has its drawbacks with security, uptime, latency, packet loss, and jitter. The latency, jitter, and packet loss associated with the Internet often cause the performance of an application to degrade. This is primarily a concern if you support hybrid applications requiring real-time backend on-premise communications.

Transport network performance directly impacts application performance. Businesses are now facing new challenges when accessing applications in the cloud over the Internet. Delayed round-trip time (RTT) is a big concern. TCP spends a few RTTs to establish the TCP session—two RTTs before you get the first data byte.

Client-side cookies may also add delays if they are large enough and unable to fit in the first data byte. Having a transport network offering good RTT is essential for application performance. You need the ability to transport packets as quickly as possible and support the concept that “every packet counts.

  • The Internet does not provide this or offer any guaranteed Service Level Agreement (SLA) for individual traffic classes.

The Azure solution – Azure ExpressRoute & Telecity cloud-IX

With Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, you get your private connection to Azure with a guaranteed SLA. It’s like a natural extension to your data center, offering lower latency, higher throughput, and better reliability than the Internet. You can now build applications spanning on-premise infrastructures and Azure Cloud without compromising performance. It bypasses the Internet and lets you connect your on-premise data center to your cloud data center via 3rd-party MPLS networks.

There are two ways to establish your private connection to Azure with ExpressRoute: Exchange Provider or Network Service Provider. Choose a method if you want to co-locate equipment. Companies like Telecity offer a “bridging product” enabling direct connectivity from your WAN to Azure via their MPLS network. Even though Telecity is an exchange provider, its network offerings are network service providers. Their bridging product is called Cloud-IX. Bridging product connectivity makes Azure Cloud look like another terrestrial data center.

Azure ExpressRoute
Diagram: Azure ExpressRoute.

Cloud-IX is a neutral cloud ecosystem. It allows enterprises to establish private connections to cloud service providers, not just Azure. Telecity Cloud-IX network already has redundant NNI peering to Microsoft data centers, enabling you to set up your peering connections to Cloud-IX via BGP or statics only. You don’t peer directly with Azure. Telecity and Cloud-IX take care of transport security and redundancy. Cloud-IX is likely an MPLS network that uses route targets (RT) and route distinguishers (RD) to separate and distinguish customer traffic.

Azure ExpressRoute Redundancy

The introduction of VNets

Layer-3 overlays called VNets ( cloud boundaries/subnets) are now associated with four ExpressRoutes. This offers a proper active-active data center design, enabling path diversity and the ability to build resilient connectivity. This is great for designers as it means we can make true geo-resilience into ExpressRoute designs by creating two ExpressRoute “dedicated circuits” and associating each virtual network with both.

This ensures full end-to-end resilience built into the Azure ExpressRoute configuration, including removing all geographic SPOFs. ExpressRoute connections are created between the Exchange Service Provider or Network Service Provider and the Microsoft cloud. The connectivity between customers’ on-premise locations and the service provider is produced independently of ExpressRoute. Microsoft only peers with service providers.

Azure Express Route
Diagram: Azure Express Route redundancy with VNets.

Barracuda NG firewall & Azure Express Route

Barracuda NG Firewall adds protection to Microsoft ExpressRoute. The NG is installed at both ends of the connection and offers traffic access controls, security features, low latency, and automatic path failover with Barracuda’s proprietary transport protocol, TINA. Traffic Access Control: From the IP to the Application layer, the NG firewall gives you complete visibility into traffic flows in and out of ExpressRoute.

With visibility, you get better control of the traffic. In addition, the NG firewall allows you to log what servers are doing outbound. This may be interesting to know if a server gets hacked in Azure. You would like to know what the attacker is doing outbound to it. Analytics will let you contain it or log it. When you get attacked, you need to know what traffic the attacker generates and if they are pivoting to other servers.

There have been security concerns about the number of administrative domains ExpressRoute overlays. It would help if you implemented security measures as you shared the logic with other customers’ physical routers. The NG encrypts end-to-end traffic from both endpoints. This encryption can be customized based on your requirements; for example, transport may be TCP, UDP, or hybrid, and you have complete control over the keys and algorithms.

  • Preserve low latency

Preserve Low Latency for applications that require high-quality service. The NG can provide quality service based on ports and applications, which offer a better service to high business applications. It also optimizes traffic by sending bulk traffic automatically over the Internet and keeping critical traffic on the low latency path.

Automatic Transport Link failover with TINA. Upon MPLS link failure, the NG can automatically switch to an internet-based transport and continue to pass traffic to the Azure gateway. It automatically creates a secure tunnel over the Internet without any packet drops, offering a graceful failover to Internet VPN. This allows multiple links to be active-active, making the WAN edge similar to the analogy of SD-WAN utilizing a transport-agnostic failover approach.

TINA is SSL-based, not IPSEC, and runs over TCP/UDP /ESP. Because Azure only supports TCP & UDP, TINA is supported and can run across the Microsoft fabric.

Summary: Azure ExpressRoute

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses seek ways to enhance cloud connectivity for seamless data transfer and improved security. One such solution is Azure ExpressRoute, a private and dedicated network connection to Microsoft Azure. In this blog post, we delved into the various benefits of Azure ExpressRoute and how it can revolutionize your cloud experience.

Understanding Azure ExpressRoute

Azure ExpressRoute is a service that allows organizations to establish a private and dedicated connection to Azure, bypassing the public internet. This direct pathway ensures a more reliable, secure, and low-latency data and application transfer connection.

Enhanced Security and Data Privacy

With Azure ExpressRoute, organizations can significantly enhance security by keeping their data off the public internet. Establishing a private connection safeguards sensitive information from potential threats, ensuring data privacy and compliance with industry regulations.

Improved Performance and Reliability

The dedicated nature of Azure ExpressRoute ensures a high-performance connection with consistent network latency and minimal packet loss. By bypassing the public internet, organizations can achieve faster data transfer speeds, reduced latency, and enhanced user experience.

Hybrid Cloud Enablement

Azure ExpressRoute enables seamless integration between on-premises infrastructure and the Azure cloud environment. This makes it an ideal solution for organizations adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, allowing them to leverage the benefits of both environments without compromising on security or performance.

Flexible Network Architecture

Azure ExpressRoute offers flexibility in network architecture, allowing organizations to choose from multiple connectivity options. Whether establishing a direct connection from their data center or utilizing a colocation facility, organizations can design a network setup that best suits their requirements.

Conclusion:

Azure ExpressRoute provides businesses with a direct and dedicated pathway to the cloud, offering enhanced security, improved performance, and flexibility in network architecture. By leveraging Azure ExpressRoute, organizations can unlock the full potential of their cloud infrastructure and accelerate their digital transformation journey.