How to Secure Azure Virtual Networks Without Overcomplicating
Featuring: The Hub and Spoke You Actually Want In Your Life
If you’ve ever stared at your Azure networking diagrams and wondered why they look like someone spilled spaghetti across a whiteboard, today’s your lucky day. There is a tidy, sensible pattern that keeps you from drowning in subnet chaos. It’s called hub and spoke. And no, it has nothing to do with bicycle parts or motivational speeches.
It’s a way to secure your Azure Virtual Networks without summoning an army of architects or sacrificing your sanity.
Hub and Spoke in 60 Seconds
Picture your Azure environment as an airport.
The hub is your main terminal: centralised, controlled, and where all the important security gadgets live.
The spokes are the gates branching out to different workloads: isolated enough to avoid drama but connected enough that everyone can still get on the plane.
You use the hub to centralise stuff like firewalls, DNS, and security controls. The spokes run workloads like apps, data, or that test subnet someone swears they’ll delete but never will.
The beauty is separation without loneliness.
Why It Makes Security Easier
Hub and spoke is basically the grown up version of “everyone keep your toys in your own bins.”
Spokes stay focused, isolated, and tidy
The hub handles shared services
You get one place to put the important secure things instead of sprinkling security across 19 vNets like digital glitter
And glitter is forever. Learn from the craft projects of childhood.
Start With the Basics
Before wiring up your hub like a sci fi command centre, keep it simple:
Put workloads into different spokes based on function or sensitivity
Use clear subnet boundaries
Avoid mixing dev with prod unless you enjoy chaos
If someone says “we need everything in one vNet to make it easier,” that is your cue to squint dramatically and ask them why they hate future you.
NSGs: Still Your Best Security Friends
Even in hub and spoke, Network Security Groups remain your trusty bouncers.
Put NSGs on the spokes
Keep rules readable
Don’t create NSG rule hoarding situations where your subnet looks like a firewall escape room
NSGs control east-west traffic inside your setup, which is a fancy way of saying “don’t let the wrong things talk to each other.”
The Hub Is Where You Put the Fancy Stuff
Your hub is perfect for centralised controls like:
Azure Firewall
DDoS protection
Private DNS zones
Bastion
Logging and monitoring tools
Instead of paying for duplicate firewalls in every spoke (ouch), you get one powerful, well governed set of controls in one place.
Treat your hub like a neat toolbox, not a junk drawer.
Private Endpoints: Keep It Private, Keep It Sane
Private endpoints still behave inside hub and spoke, but plan your DNS early. Otherwise you’ll be staring at a failed connection whispering “why” like it personally betrayed you.
Set guardrails around who can create them so you don’t end up with a nest of them spread across every spoke.
Human Habits Will Make or Break This
Even with crisp architecture, humans will find ways to vibe check your security.
Someone will poke a rule open “temporarily”
Someone will create a random peer
Someone will bypass the hub because “it was faster that way”
This is why processes, automation, and gentle reminders are essential. Beyond patches is about the people behind the pipelines, after all.
Teach teams how to request access safely. Automate the boring reviews. Celebrate the person who asks “why do we have three firewalls suddenly?”
Monitoring: Because Surprise Traffic Is Rarely Good
Turn on flow logs and NSG insights early.
Track traffic through the hub so you know what’s normal and what’s spicy.
Alerts should feel like nudges, not jump scares.
In the End, Keep It Simple
Hub and spoke helps you build a secure, scalable network without spiralling into accidental networking art installations. Start clean. Keep your hub organised. Keep your spokes tidy. Automate the stuff humans are guaranteed to mess up.
Your future self will thank you. And your Azure diagrams will finally stop looking like a disappointing bowl of noodles.