What's new in Azure Virtual WAN?
Azure Virtual WAN is updated regularly. Stay up to date with the latest announcements. This article provides you with information about:
- Recent releases
- Previews underway with known limitations (if applicable)
- Known issues
- Deprecated functionality (if applicable)
You can also find the latest Azure Virtual WAN updates and subscribe to the RSS feed here.
Recent releases
Routing
| Type | Area | Name | Description | Date added | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metric | Routing | New Virtual Hub Metrics | There are now two new Virtual WAN hub metrics that display the virtual hub's capacity and spoke VM utilization: Routing Infrastructure Units and Spoke VM Utilization. | August 2024 | The Spoke VM Utilization metric represents an approximate number of deployed spoke VMs as a percentage of the total number of spoke VMs that the hub's routing infrastructure units can support. |
| Feature | Routing | Routing intent | Routing intent is the mechanism through which you can configure Virtual WAN to send private or internet traffic via a security solution deployed in the hub. | May 2023 | Routing Intent is Generally Available in Azure public cloud. See documentation for other limitations. |
| Feature | Routing | Virtual hub routing preference | Hub routing preference gives you more control over your infrastructure by allowing you to select how your traffic is routed when a virtual hub router learns multiple routes across S2S VPN, ER, and SD-WAN NVA connections. | October 2022 | |
| Feature | Routing | Bypass next hop IP for workloads within a spoke VNet connected to the virtual WAN hub generally available | Bypassing next hop IP for workloads within a spoke VNet connected to the virtual WAN hub lets you deploy and access other resources in the VNet with your NVA without any additional configuration. | October 2022 | |
| SKU/Feature/Validation | Routing | BGP end point (General availability) | The virtual hub router now exposes the ability to peer with it, thereby exchanging routing information directly through Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing protocol. | June 2022 | |
| Feature | Routing | 0.0.0.0/0 via NVA in the spoke | Ability to send internet traffic to an NVA in spoke for egress. | March 2021 | 0.0.0.0/0 doesn't propagate across hubs. Can't specify multiple public prefixes with different next hop IP addresses. |
NVAs and integrated third-party solutions
| Type | Area | Name | Description | Date added | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feature | Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs)/Integrated Third-party solutions in Virtual WAN hubs | Public Preview of Internet inbound/DNAT for Next-Generation Firewall NVAs | Destination NAT for Network Virtual Appliances in the Virtual WAN hub allows you to publish applications to the users in the internet without directly exposing the application or server's public IP. Consumers access applications through a public IP address assigned to a Firewall Network Virtual Appliance. | February 2024 | Supported for Fortinet Next-Generation Firewall, Check Point CloudGuard. See DNAT documentation for the full list of limitations and considerations. |
| Feature | Software-as-a-service | Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW | General Availability of Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW, the first software-as-a-serivce security offering deployable within the Virtual WAN hub. | July 2023 | Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW is now deployable in all Virtual WAN hubs (new and old). See Limitations of Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for a full list of limitations and regional availability. Same limitations as routing intent. |
| Feature | Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs)/Integrated Third-party solutions in Virtual WAN hubs | Fortinet NGFW | General Availability of Fortinet NGFW and Fortinet SD-WAN/NGFW dual-role NVAs. | May 2023 | Same limitations as routing intent. Doesn't support internet inbound scenario. |
| Feature | Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs)/Integrated Third-party solutions in Virtual WAN hubs | Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for Azure Virtual WAN | General Availability of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security NVA deployable from Azure Marketplace within the Virtual WAN hub in all Azure regions. | May 2023 | Same limitations as routing intent. Doesn't support internet inbound scenario. |
| Feature | Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs)/Integrated Third-party solutions in Virtual WAN hubs | Versa SD-WAN | Preview of Versa SD-WAN. | November 2021 | |
| Feature | Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs)/Integrated Third-party solutions in Virtual WAN hubs | Cisco Viptela, Barracuda and VMware (Velocloud) SD-WAN | General Availability of SD-WAN solutions in Virtual WAN. | June/July 2021 |
ExpressRoute
| Type | Area | Name | Description | Date added | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feature | ExpressRoute | ExpressRoute metrics can be exported as diagnostic logs | April 2023 | ||
| Feature | ExpressRoute | ExpressRoute circuit page now shows vWAN connection | August 2022 |
Site-to-site
| Type | Area | Name | Description | Date added | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feature | Branch connectivity/Site-to-site VPN | Multi-APIPA BGP | Ability to specify multiple custom BGP IPs for VPN gateway instances in vWAN. | June 2022 | Currently only available via portal. (Not available yet in PowerShell) |
| Feature | Branch connectivity/Site-to-site VPN | Custom traffic selectors | Ability to specify what traffic selector pairs site-to-site VPN gateway negotiates | May 2022 | Azure negotiates traffic selectors for all pairs of remote and local prefixes. You can't specify individual pairs of Traffic selectors to negotiate. |
| Feature | Branch connectivity/Site-to-site VPN | Site-to-site connection mode choices | Ability to configure if customer or vWAN gateway should initiate the site-to-site connection while creating a new S2S connection. | February 2022 | |
| Feature | Branch connectivity/Site-to-site VPN | Packet capture | Ability for customer to perform packet captures on site-to-site VPN gateway. | November 2021 | |
| Feature | Branch connectivity/Site-to-site VPN Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN |
Hot-potato vs cold-potato routing for VPN traffic | Ability to specify Microsoft or ISP POP preference for Azure VPN egress traffic. For more information, see Routing preference in Azure. | June 2021 | This parameter can only be specified at gateway creation time and can't be modified after the fact. |
| Feature | Branch connectivity/Site-to-site VPN | NAT | Ability to NAT overlapping addresses between site-to-site VPN branches, and between site-to-site VPN branches and Azure. | March 2021 | NAT isn't supported with policy-based VPN connections. |
User VPN (point-to-site)
| Type | Area | Name | Description | Date added | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | User Groups and IP address pools for P2S User VPNs | Ability to configure P2S User VPNs to assign users IP addresses from specific address pools based on their identity or authentication credentials. | May 2023 | |
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | Global profile include/exclude | Ability to mark a point-to-site gateway as "excluded", meaning users who connect to global profile won't be load-balanced to that gateway. | February 2022 | |
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | Forced tunneling for P2S VPN | Ability to force all traffic to Azure Virtual WAN for egress. | October 2021 | Only available for Azure VPN Client version 2:1900:39.0 or newer. |
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | macOS Azure VPN client | General Availability of Azure VPN Client for macOS. | August 2021 | |
| Feature | Branch connectivity/Site-to-site VPN Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN |
Hot-potato vs cold-potato routing for VPN traffic | Ability to specify Microsoft or ISP POP preference for Azure VPN egress traffic. For more information, see Routing preference in Azure. | June 2021 | This parameter can only be specified at gateway creation time and can't be modified after the fact. |
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | Remote RADIUS server | Ability for a P2S VPN gateway to forward authentication traffic to a RADIUS server in a VNet connected to a different hub, or a RADIUS server hosted on-premises. | April 2021 | |
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | Dual-RADIUS server | Ability to specify primary and backup RADIUS servers to service authentication traffic. | March 2021 | |
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | Custom IPsec policies | Ability to specify connection/encryption parameters for IKEv2 point-to-site connections. | March 2021 | Only supported for IKEv2- based connections. View the list of available parameters. |
| SKU | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | Support up to 100K users connected to a single hub | Increased maximum number of concurrent users connected to a single gateway to 100,000. | March 2021 | |
| Feature | Remote User connectivity/Point-to-site VPN | Multiple-authentication methods | Ability for a single gateway to use multiple authentication mechanisms. | June 2023 | Supported for gateways running all protocol combinations. Note that Azure AD authentication still requires the use of OpenVPN |
Preview
The following features are currently in gated public preview. After working with the listed articles, you have questions or require support, reach out to the contact alias (if available) that corresponds to the feature.
| Type of preview | Feature | Description | Contact alias | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managed preview | Route-maps | This feature allows you to perform route aggregation, route filtering, and modify BGP attributes for your routes in Virtual WAN. | preview-route-maps@microsoft.com | Known limitations are displayed here: About Route-maps. |
| Managed preview | Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN | Deployment of Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN NVA into the Virtual WAN hub | preview-vwan-aruba@microsoft.com |
Known issues
| # | Issue | Description | Date first reported | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ExpressRoute connectivity with Azure Storage and the 0.0.0.0/0 route | If you have configured a 0.0.0.0/0 route statically in a virtual hub route table or dynamically via a network virtual appliance for traffic inspection, that traffic will bypass inspection when destined for Azure Storage and is in the same region as the ExpressRoute gateway in the virtual hub. | As a workaround, you can either use Private Link to access Azure Storage or put the Azure Storage service in a different region than the virtual hub. | |
| 2 | Default routes (0/0) won't propagate inter-hub | 0/0 routes won't propagate between two virtual WAN hubs. | June 2020 | None. Note: While the Virtual WAN team has fixed the issue, wherein static routes defined in the static route section of the VNet peering page propagate to route tables listed in "propagate to route tables" or the labels listed in "propagate to route tables" on the VNet connection page, default routes (0/0) won't propagate inter-hub. |
| 3 | Two ExpressRoute circuits in the same peering location connected to multiple hubs | If you have two ExpressRoute circuits in the same peering location, and both of these circuits are connected to multiple virtual hubs in the same Virtual WAN, then connectivity to your Azure resources might be impacted. | July 2023 | Make sure each virtual hub has at least 1 virtual network connected to it. This ensures connectivity to your Azure resources. The Virtual WAN team is also working on a fix for this issue. |
| 4 | ExpressRoute ECMP Support | Today, ExpressRoute ECMP is not enabled by default for virtual hub deployments. When multiple ExpressRoute circuits are connected to a Virtual WAN hub, ECMP enables traffic from spoke virtual networks to on-premises over ExpressRoute to be distributed across all ExpressRoute circuits advertising the same on-premises routes. | To enable ECMP for your Virtual WAN hub, please reach out to virtual-wan-ecmp@microsoft.com after January 1, 2025. | |
| 5 | Virtual WAN hub address prefixes are not advertised to other Virtual WAN hubs in the same Virtual WAN. | You can't leverage Virtual WAN hub-to-hub full mesh routing capabilities to provide connectivity between NVA orchestration software deployed in a VNET or on-premises connected to a Virtual WAN hub to an Integrated NVA or SaaS solution deployed in a different Virtual WAN hub. | If your NVA or SaaS orchestrator is deployed on-premises, connect that on-premises site to all Virtual WAN hubs with NVAs or SaaS solutions deployed in them. If your orchestrator is in an Azure VNET, manage NVAs or SaaS solutions using public IP. Support for Azure VNET orchestrators is on the roadmap. | |
| 6 | Configuring routing intent to route between connectivity and firewall NVAs in the same Virtual WAN Hub | Virtual WAN routing intent private routing policy does not support routing between an SD-WAN NVA and a Firewall NVA (or SaaS solution) deployed in the same Virtual hub. | Deploy the connectivity and firewall integrated NVAs in two different hubs in the same Azure region. Alternatively, deploy the connectivity NVA to a spoke Virtual Network connected to your Virtual WAN Hub and leverage the BGP peering. | |
| 7 | BGP between the Virtual WAN hub router and NVAs deployed in the Virtual WAN hub does not come up if the ASN used for BGP peering is updated post-deployment. | Virtual Hub router expects NVA in the hub to use the ASN that was configured on the router when the NVA was first deployed. Updating the ASN associated with the NVA on the NVA resource does not properly register the new ASN with the Virtual Hub router so the router rejects BGP sessions from the NVA if the NVA OS is configured to use the new ASN. | Delete and recreate the NVA in the Virtual WAN hub with the correct ASN. | |
| 8 | Advertising default route (0.0.0.0/0) from on-premises (VPN, ExpressRoute, BGP endpoint) or statically configured on a Virtual Network connection is not supported for forced tunneling use cases. | The 0.0.0.0/0 route advertised from on-premises (or statically configured on a Virtual Network connection) is not applied to the Azure Firewall or other security solutions deployed in the Virtual WAN hub. Packets inspected by the security solution in the hub are routed directly to the internet, bypassing the route learnt from on-premises | Publish the default route from on-premises only in non-secure hub scenarios. | |
| 9 | Routing intent update operations fail in deployments where private routing policy next hop resource is an NVA or SaaS solution. | In deployments where private routing policy is configured with next hop NVA or SaaS solutions alongside additional private prefixes, modifying routing intent fails. Examples of operations that fail are adding or removing internet or private routing policies. This known issue doesn't impact deployments with no additional private prefixes configured. | Remove any additional private prefixes, update routing intent and then re-configure additional private prefixes. | |
| 10 | DNAT traffic is not forwarded to the NVA after associating an additional IP address. | After associating additional IP address(es) to an NVA that already has active inbound security rules, DNAT traffic is not forwarded properly to the NVA due to a code defect. | November 2024 | Use partner orchestration/management software to modify (create or delete existing) configured inbound-security rules to restore connectivity. |
| 11 | Inbound security rule configuration scalability | Inbound security rule configuration may fail when a large number (approximately 100) rules are configured. | November 2024 | None, reach out Azure Support for more information. |
Next steps
For more information about Azure Virtual WAN, see What is Azure Virtual WAN and frequently asked questions- FAQ.