Networking

Concepts

The network fabric is the deployed physical network — racks, switches, terminal server connections, and cabling — represented in Azure as a Network Fabric resource. It provides bootstrapping and lifecycle management of devices, workload network configuration for east-west and north-south traffic, observability, and access policy.

Intake

Sequence

1. Confirm scale and fabric state — Read-only inventory of fabric, devices, and isolation domains. See resource-types.
2. Load authoritative docs — Fetch multi-rack-network-fabric-overview via docs-map.
3. Design segmentation — Configure L3 isolation domains before dependent logical networks.
4. Create logical networks — Then network interfaces for workloads.
5. Virtual networks — Where the workload requires them.
6. Load balancing — Load balancer logical network first, then internal or public load balancer.
7. External connectivity — Public IP and NAT gateway as required.
8. Security — Create and manage network security groups.
9. Validate — Confirm reachability and that route import/export behaves as intended.

Guardrails

• Fabric and isolation domain changes are instance-wide. Always confirm with the user first.
• Do not modify route policies without understanding existing import/export behavior.
• Do not delete a logical network or isolation domain still referenced by workloads.
• Never treat Azure Resource Health as fabric health.
• Follow safety-rules.

Evidence to collect

• Network Fabric Controller and fabric resource IDs and state.
• Network device inventory and health.
• Isolation domain configuration, L2 and L3.
• Logical and virtual network definitions.
• Load balancer, public IP, and NAT gateway configuration.
• NSG rules applied to affected interfaces.

Related references

• Docs map
• CLI and prerequisites
• Resource types
• Safety rules