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24 Capturing and Cloning in VNet Environments with Azure

The capturing and cloning of VNet environments are not available with the Free edition of N2W.

24.1 Overview of VNet and N2W

VNet is an Azure service that allows the definition of virtual networks in the Azure cloud. Users can define VNets with a network range, define subnets under them, security groups, Internet Gateways, VPN connections, and more. One of the resources of the VNet service is also called ‘VNet’, which is the actual virtual, isolated network.

N2W can capture the VNet and Transit Gateway settings as root resources, including their related resources of user environments and clone those settings back to Azure:

  • In the same location and account, for example, if the original settings were lost.

  • To another location and/or account, such as in DR scenarios.

  • With VNet resource properties modified in template uploaded with ARM (Azure Resource Manager), if required.

24.2 Prerequisites and Limitations

Prerequisites:

  • Enable Network Entity Capture must be enabled for the Azure account.

  • Capture Network Environments must be enabled in the General Settings.

Limitations:

  • The clone destination location should have sufficient quotas to hold all resources captured in the source location.

Shared Resource Limitations:

  • The following shared resources are not supported for cloning:

    • Shared Prefix lists

    • Shared Subnets

24.3 Features of Capturing and Cloning VNet Environments

The objective of Capture and Clone is to provide the ability to protect the root entities of VNet environment types from disaster, by saving their configurations and allowing for recovery in any location.

  • Backed up VNet entities include:

    • VNet resource configuration

    • Subnets - VNet tries to match AZs with similar names and spread subnets in destinations in the same way as in source locations.

    • Security groups

    • DHCP Options Sets - Not supporting multi-name in domain server name.

    • Route tables - Not supporting rules with entities that are specific to the source location.

    • Network ACLs

    • Internet Gateways

    • Egress-Only Internet Gateways

    • VPN Gateways

    • Customer Gateways

    • VPN Connections

    • NAT Gateways

    • VNet Peering connections – Not supporting peer on a different Azure account

    • Managed Prefix Lists

The Capture Log in the Capture Network Environments tab of General Settings reports the capture status of entities: captured, not captured, or only partially captured.

  • VNet environment capturing:

    • Accounts are enabled for VNet environment configuration capturing by default, but this setting can be disabled as needed.

    • Captures in all locations of interest, excluding the unsupported locations.

    • N2W will capture and save all changes made on Azure for a user’s VNets.

    • Not supported: Carrier gateways, Network interfaces related to VNets, Elastic IP addresses, VNet Endpoints, VNet Endpoints services, Firewalls, and Traffic Mirroring.Transit Gateway resource configuration

24.4 Updating Accounts for Capturing VNet Environments

By default, accounts are enabled to capture VNet environment configurations. Configuration data is automatically captured for all enabled accounts according to the interval configured in the General Settings. To not capture VNet environments for an account, disable the feature in the account.

To disable, or enable, an individual account for capturing network entities:

  1. In the main navigation menu, select Accounts, and then select an Azure account.

  2. Select Edit.

  3. To disable capturing the network entities of the account, clear Enable Network Entity Capture and select Save.

  4. To enable, perform the following:

    1. Select Enable Network Entity Capture.

    2. Select the relevant network locations.

    3. Select Save.

  5. The network entities will be captured at the intervals defined in the Capture Network Environment tab of General Settings. To capture immediately, select Capture Now in the Capture Network Environment tab, as described in the next section.

24.5 Configuring Capture of Network Environment Entities

The root user can:

  • Enable or disable automatic capture of network environment entities for accounts with the feature enabled.

  • Schedule automatic capture interval.

  • Initiate an ad hoc capture by selecting Capture Now for all accounts with this feature enabled, even if Capture Network Environments is disabled in General Settings.

  • View the last network environment entities captured in the different locations and accounts in Show Log.

  1. Select Server Settings > General Settings.

  2. In the Capture Network Environments tab, select Capture Network Environments to enable the feature.

  3. To change the capture frequency from the default, select a new interval from the Capture Interval list.

  4. Select Save to update N2W.

  5. To initiate an immediate capture for all network environment enabled accounts, regardless of server settings, select Capture Now.

24.6 Cloning VNet Environments

Cloning VNet environment entities includes the following features:

  • Both cross-location and cross-account cloning are supported for VNets.

  • The target clone can have a new name. The name will automatically include ‘Clone of ’ at the beginning.

24.6.1 Cloning VNets

Prerequisites, Conditions, and Limitations

  • Before cloning, verify that the destination location has sufficient quotas for all resources captured in the source location.

  • Verify that you select the location where the VNet is defined.

Cloning VNets includes the following features:

  • The target clone can have a new name. The name will automatically include ‘Clone of’ at the beginning.

  • During instance recovery and DR, clones may be optionally created to replicate a particular VNet environment before the actual instance recovery proceeds. The new instance will have the environment of the cloned VNet and will subsequently appear at the top of the target location and account list. A typical scenario might be to capture the VNet, clone the VNet for the first instance, and then apply the cloned VNet to additional instances in the location/account.

  • Instances recovered into a cloned VNet destination environment will also have new default entities, such as the VNet’s subnet definition and 1 or more security groups attached to the instance, regardless of the original default entities. Security groups can be changed during recovery.

24.6.2 Cloning using N2W and Manual Cloning

When cloning VNet environment entities to an Azure account, N2W generates a JSON template for use with ARM (Azure Resource Manager). N2W supports ARM templates generated up to 4 MB.

To clone captured VNets:

  1. Select the Accounts tab and then select an Azure account.

  2. Select Clone Network Entities.

  3. In the Clone Source section, perform the following:

    1. In the Location drop-down list, select the source location of the capture to clone.

    2. In the Resource Group drop-down list, select the source resource group of the capture to clone.

    3. In the Source VNet drop-down list, select the item to clone.

    4. In the Captured at drop-down list, select the date and time of the capture to clone.

  4. In the Clone Destination section, perform the following:

    1. In the Account drop-down list, select the account in which to create the clone.

    2. In the Location drop-down list, select the location to create the clone.

    3. In the Resource Group drop-down list, select the resource group to create the clone.

    4. In the VNet Name, a suggested name for the cloned item is shown. Enter a new name, if needed.

  5. Select Clone VNet. At the end of the cloning, a status message will appear in a box:

    • Cloning VNet completed successfully. There may be an informational message that you may need to make manual changes. Check the log, using Download Log, for further information.

  6. To view the results of the clone network entity action, select Download Log.

When cloning VNets with resources not supported by N2W, you can download the ARM template for the cloned entity, add or modify resource information, and upload the modified template to the Azure ARM service manually.

To create a clone manually with ARM:

  1. In the Account Clone VNet Entities screen, complete the fields as described above.

  2. Select VNet ARM Template to download the ARM JSON template.

  3. Modify the template, as required. See the example in section ‎24.6.3.

  4. Manually upload the modified template with ARM.

24.6.3 ARM Template Example

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