Edit

Share via

Virtual network TAP

  • Article

Important

Virtual network TAP Preview is currently on hold in all Azure regions. You can email us at azurevnettap@microsoft.com with your subscription ID and we will notify you with future updates about the preview. In the interim, you can use agent based or NVA solutions that provide TAP/Network Visibility functionality through our Packet Broker partner solutions available in Azure Marketplace Offerings.

Azure virtual network TAP (Terminal Access Point) allows you to continuously stream your virtual machine network traffic to a network packet collector or analytics tool. The collector or analytics tool is provided by a network virtual appliance partner. For a list of partner solutions that are validated to work with virtual network TAP, see partner solutions.

The following diagram shows how virtual network TAP works. You can add a TAP configuration on a network interface that is attached to a virtual machine deployed in your virtual network. The destination is a virtual network IP address in the same virtual network as the monitored network interface or a peered virtual network. The collector solution for virtual network TAP can be deployed behind an Azure Internal Load balancer for high availability.

Diagram of how virtual network TAP works.

Prerequisites

Before you can create a virtual network TAP, ensure you've received the confirmation email that you're enrolled in the preview. You must have one or more virtual machines created with Azure Resource Manager and a partner solution for aggregating the TAP traffic in the same Azure region. If you don't have a partner solution in your virtual network, see partner solutions to deploy one.

You can use the same virtual network TAP resource to aggregate traffic from multiple network interfaces in the same or different subscriptions. If the monitored network interfaces are in different subscriptions, the subscriptions must be associated to the same Microsoft Entra tenant. Additionally, the monitored network interfaces and the destination endpoint for aggregating the TAP traffic can be in peered virtual networks in the same region. If you're using this deployment model, ensure that the virtual network peering is enabled before you configure virtual network TAP.

Permissions

The accounts you use to apply TAP configuration on network interfaces must be assigned to the network contributor role or a custom role that is assigned the necessary actions from the following table:

Action Name
Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkTaps/* Required to create, update, read and delete a virtual network TAP resource
Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/read Required to read the network interface resource on which the TAP is configured
Microsoft.Network/tapConfigurations/* Required to create, update, read and delete the TAP configuration on a network interface

Virtual network TAP partner solutions

Network packet brokers

Security analytics, network/application performance management

Next steps