Azure Network Watcher Reviews

The purpose of using Azure Network Watcher is to observe the network flow logs during any kind of troubleshooting. If there is any performance issue or latency issue over the network, we check the flow logs from Azure Network Watcher.

It provides good traffic analytics and flow logs, giving substantial log information about IP traffic, including the flow direction of traffic and amount of packets which are wasted or reaching destination. This helps in understanding what is happening with traffic analytics in terms of monitoring the flow log. When doing VPN work which enables troubleshooting your network gateway, such as having a VPN from non-Azure entity towards Azure and encountering an issue within that network, you can determine whether the issue is from the Azure level or from another source outside of Azure.

It helps to monitor the security rules. If you have used network service groups on your subnets or network interfaces and want to troubleshoot whether they are working properly in terms of allow port or deny port, you can find it out from Azure Network Watcher. The main use cases include NSG diagnostics, IP flow verification, traffic analytics verification, and troubleshooting VPN traffic.

I have worked with Azure Network Watcher for the last six to seven years.

For the alerting functionality, configuration is required, and you need to establish maximum and minimum threshold levels. It is up to you how you configure the alerting on your network traffic. There are numerous elements available through Azure Monitor where you can set up alerts based on various network matrices. These matrices can include connection monitoring, flow log, packet capture, and various other monitoring options. Azure provides many matrices within itself to monitor network packets.

The quality of Azure Network Watcher is quite good in terms of the in-depth analysis you can create from these matrices. There are other monitoring tools such as New Relic, AppDynamics, and Dynatrace which provide very detailed network tracing. Cloud providers such as Azure or AWS do not have that kind of GUI-based capability at this point, but using PowerShell or Python, you can develop it yourself. From the GUI perspective, it still needs to evolve in terms of quality and standard, though overall, it is quite good for troubleshooting.

Regarding areas for improvement, when comparing to other network tools beyond Azure Monitor or Azure Network Watcher, those tools can identify single failed packets. This level of granularity is not currently possible with cloud providers as they only go to a certain level rather than the granular level needed for deep troubleshooting, though they do provide hints with available matrices.

I have been using Azure Network Watcher for the last six to seven years.

Azure Network Watcher only goes down when Azure goes down; it doesn't go down by itself.

From the perspective of scalability, Azure Network Watcher is always scalable. For free units in terms of pricing, you get 5 GB per month. For enterprise users, 5 GB is insufficient, and they might need 50 GB, 100 GB, or 500 GB. The cost increases by 0.5 per GB. It is definitely scalable and you can use as much as needed, but the cost varies according to the number of packets being sent back and forth. If communication occurs outside of Azure, the cost increases. If communication remains within Azure and within the same region, the cost is lower.

Technical support from Microsoft needs significant improvement compared to other product vendors. Over the last five to six years, Microsoft has been using its customers as beta testers, releasing products before they are fully stable. For overall product support, they deserve a rating of six out of ten. For network flow logs specifically, they merit a seven out of ten. I haven't needed to use their support for Azure Network Watcher and flow logs, but based on experience with other products, they don't score higher than six.

Positive

The setup is very straightforward. Once you purchase or procure a subscription and create a resource group, Azure Network Watcher is automatically enabled into your subscription or resource group. When you create network resources, Azure Network Watcher starts monitoring them by default with several available matrices. If you want to go further, you can install network diagnostic agents directly on the VM, and the integration can be developed with the Azure monitoring capability, allowing Azure Network Watcher to accept more details from your system beyond default settings.

Azure Network Watcher is affordable from the perspective of basic costing. It doesn't cost too much at this point unless you are requesting customizable detailed matrices. For the default configuration, the cost is quite reasonable and affordable.

The customizable dashboards and reporting capabilities within Azure Network Watcher are quite good. There are many matrices available within the GUI itself, allowing for customization according to your needs. It provides numerous features and matrices for monitoring purposes.

I work with Microsoft Azure as well as AWS and GCP. Azure Network Watcher deserves a rating of eight out of ten. While there are areas for improvement, the overall quality of the product and its pricing structure are satisfactory.

Azure Network Watcher is used for monitoring network traffic. It provides insight into egress and ingress traffic, which helps determine whether consumption can be controlled. Most Azure services come with egress transactions, and depending on the services being targeted, such as databases or data lakes, charges are based on egress traffic consumption. Azure Network Watcher helps understand the total input and output operations and data flow. It monitors bandwidth, network throughput, egress and ingress traffic, and provides insight into where traffic is coming from so you can monitor packets from specific IP addresses.

Traffic analytics is available for the public cloud and services consumed within Azure. Azure Network Watcher helps identify throughput and any threats by identifying the IPs from which broadcast traffic is coming. NSG Flow Logs allow you to control traffic based on targeted rules, blocking specific IPs and controlling inbound and outbound traffic through network flow monitoring.

Azure Network Watcher provides valuable features based on your specific requirements and use cases. If you want to monitor network bandwidth, throughput, and data flow consumption, it helps control costs. Azure Network Watcher gives you insight into egress and ingress traffic and whether consumption can be controlled. It also provides information about total input and output operations, bandwidth, and threats through IP identification.

NSG Flow Logs help control inbound and outbound traffic through network flow monitoring. Azure Network Watcher includes AI-based features and proactive monitoring through evolving AI models.

The main area for improvement is AI-based features. Currently, many intelligent tools are coming from third parties, and Azure Network Watcher needs to improve in this area. The focus should be on getting better analytics and foundation models for proactive monitoring through AI models. While these capabilities exist, they are still in beta version. Azure Network Watcher should improve to match the capabilities that Google is targeting from an analytical point of view.

Azure Network Watcher needs to improve foundation models in terms of AI-specific features and analytics, which are still evolving. This may take some time, but within one or two years, these improvements should reach a nine rating.

I have been using Azure Network Watcher for more than five years.

Azure Network Watcher is stable. There are some occasional downtimes, but these were based on Azure-specific issues.

Azure Network Watcher has some limitations, but it is scalable because it depends on the thresholds and limits they have set. It is sufficient for enterprise-level use, but there are defined limits.

Scalability depends on port blocking capabilities, including how many ports you can block and how many ports you can monitor. There is a defined threshold for these functions.

To the best of my knowledge, the previous focus was on cloud solutions. I believe they were looking for a hybrid solution for on-premises use, but I am not certain about that.

The setup is not overly complex. You can configure Azure Network Watcher depending on your use cases and specific scenarios. You need to ensure alignment with Microsoft best practices.

I do not have the exact setup cost information on hand, but it is available in the public Azure portal. You can access the calculator there to get detailed pricing information.

Google also has similar products, such as Google Security Center, and Google has a cloud monitoring solution. The products are almost the same, with not much difference between them. Both Azure Network Watcher and Google solutions are competitors and both are performing well.

By default, Azure Network Watcher monitors traffic, and if you want to configure any specific rules or policies, you can do so. My overall rating for Azure Network Watcher is eight out of ten.

Azure Network Watcher is my primary tool for network troubleshooting, connectivity validation, traffic analysis, and monitoring Azure network performance across customer environments. I use it regularly for NSG flow analysis, connection troubleshooting, packet capture, route verification, and diagnosing communication issues between VMs, VPN gateways, load balancers, and other Azure resources.

A recent example of how I used Azure Network Watcher to solve a problem for a customer involved an application hosted across multiple Azure subnets where a user suddenly lost connectivity to a backend service. Using Azure Network Watcher connection troubleshooting and NSG flow logs, I quickly identified a misconfigured NSG rule that was blocking the required traffic path. The issue was resolved within minutes, avoiding a lengthy manual investigation and significantly reducing application downtime for the customer.

Beyond troubleshooting, I use Azure Network Watcher proactively to validate network changes between production deployments and monitor traffic patterns across customer environments. It is particularly useful during migrations and security reviews where I need to verify routing, connectivity, and network security configurations without deploying additional third-party tools.

Azure Network Watcher has positively impacted my organization by improving operational efficiency and reducing the time required to troubleshoot network and connectivity issues across customer environments. It provides better visibility into traffic flows, routing, and security controls, enabling faster root cause analysis, reduced downtime, and more reliable cloud network operations without relying heavily on third-party monitoring tools.

I have observed measurable operational improvements with Azure Network Watcher. Network troubleshooting and root cause analysis have become approximately 40 to 50 percent faster compared to manual investigation methods. Connectivity and routing issues that previously took several hours to isolate could often be identified within 15 to 30 minutes using Connection Troubleshoot, NSG Flow Logs, and Next Hop analysis. This has helped reduce application downtime and improved SLA compliance across several customer environments.

The best features Azure Network Watcher offers include Connection Troubleshoot, NSG Flow Logs, Packet Capture, IP Flow Verify, and Next Hop analysis. From a cloud operations perspective, these tools provide deep visibility into network traffic, security policy enforcement, routing decisions, and connectivity issues, helping me diagnose problems much faster than manual troubleshooting methods.

NSG Flow Logs in Azure Network Watcher help me quickly determine whether traffic is being allowed or denied by security rules, which is extremely useful during connectivity issues and security investigations. Packet Capture is also valuable when troubleshooting complex application or network problems because it allows me to analyze actual traffic flows on Azure VMs without requiring direct server access or additional packet capture tools.

Another feature that I find valuable in Azure Network Watcher is IP Flow Verify and Next Hop analysis. These tools help me quickly validate routing paths and security rule decisions, which significantly reduces troubleshooting time when dealing with complex hub-and-spoke, VPN, or multi-subscription Azure network architectures.

From my experience, Azure Network Watcher could be improved with more centralized dashboards, longer-term traffic analytics, and easier correlation between network diagnostics and security events. I would also prefer richer visualization for traffic flows across complex Azure environments and more proactive recommendations for identifying routing, connectivity, or NSG misconfigurations before they impact production workloads.

Another improvement area for Azure Network Watcher would be deeper integration and correlation with other Azure monitoring and security services from a single troubleshooting interface. For large enterprise environments, more advanced historical analysis, dependency mapping, and automated root cause identification would help cloud and network teams resolve issues much faster and reduce manual investigation efforts.

The customer support is very good, and the response time, documentation, and KB articles present on the customer portal are good. I often require support from the customer support team, but whenever I reach out, the engineers have more expertise and the response time is also very low.

Before relying on Azure Network Watcher, I primarily used a combination of third-party network monitoring tools, manual packet captures, and VM-based troubleshooting utilities. I shifted towards Azure Network Watcher because it is natively integrated with Azure, provides fast access to network diagnostics, and reduces the need to deploy and manage additional monitoring infrastructure for cloud environments.

I have seen a clear return on investment from Azure Network Watcher, primarily due to faster troubleshooting and reduced operational effort. Network incident investigation time decreased by 40 to 50 percent. Issues that previously required several engineers and hours of manual analysis could be resolved, often by a single engineer, within 15 to 20 minutes. My team was able to support more customer environments without increasing operational resources, improving overall efficiency and SLA performance.

My experience with Azure Network Watcher regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive because it is integrated into the Azure ecosystem and does not require complex licensing. The setup effort was minimal, with costs primarily driven by features such as NSG Flow Logs storage and log retention. Overall, the pricing has been reasonable relative to the operational visibility and troubleshooting value it provides.

Before choosing Azure Network Watcher, I evaluated other options such as third-party network monitoring and observability solutions, including SolarWinds Network Performance Management and Monitor. I chose Azure Network Watcher because of its native Azure integration, lower operational overhead, direct access to network telemetry, and the ability to troubleshoot Azure networking issues without deploying additional infrastructure.

The advice I would give to organizations looking into using Azure Network Watcher is to enable it early in their Azure deployments and integrate it with standard operational and troubleshooting processes. I would also suggest that they configure NSG Flow Logs, Connection Troubleshoot, and diagnostic logging from the beginning. Establishing log retention and monitoring policies will support security investigations and compliance needs. I would rate this product 8 out of 10.

We use the solution to block and analyze the situation.

It is good for VPN troubleshooting. Another important feature is connection troubleshooting, which helps with access to servers and is commonly used. The Connections Monitor is another solution that includes many of these tools. It provides comprehensive diagnostics for common network issues. The solution also involves common tools for I/O analysis. Customers often need to translate network flows to analyze connections and communications, ensuring compliance with regulations.

If Azure Network Monitor is part of the solution, it's a comprehensive tool. For example, during cloud migration, the workload on the cloud can be significant. However, the Ethernet solution is low cost and provides a fast return on investment. In larger scenarios, such as a major deployment, the return on investment might take three months to a year. The solution involves managing workloads, machine storage, and network modes.

I have been using Azure Network Watcher for three years.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

The solution is scalable. 100 machines are using the environment. I have ten machines and sixty users in my company.

I don't have problem because if you need the support guys, Microsoft support provide solution.

Positive

The initial setup is easy and takes 30 minutes since it is manual. We have a team of six people for deployment and maintenance. 

It is affordable.

I suggest the customer review the documentation to understand the situation. Deployment and other solutions in the environment may be affected by in-house systems or configuration issues. This is a point to discuss with the customer to assess risks and consider implementing alternative solutions. 

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We are using Azure Network Watcher for remote access security.

The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is the cloud-native application firewall. It is helpful for securing databases.

Azure Network Watcher could improve by having other built-in applications. For example, an application to log activities for in and outbound traffic.

In a future release, the solution should have better firewall settings.

I have been using Azure Network Watcher for approximately two years.

Azure Network Watcher is a stable solution.

This is a stable solution.

We have four to five people in our organization that use the solution.

We are using the solution when workloads increase or if activities require it.

The support from Azure Network Watcher is good.

I rate the support from Azure Network Watcher a four out of five.

Positive

I have used many different services and I have not found many differences between them besides the price.

The initial setup of Azure Network Watcher is not easy and it is not difficult, it is in the middle range of difficulty. The full deployment can take a couple of hours to complete.

I rate the initial setup of Azure Network Watcher a four out of five.

The price of the solution is reasonable.

I rate Azure Network Watcher an eight out of ten.

I'm a cybersecurity consultant working for government agencies and we are Microsoft golden partners. 

The solution is good for monitoring device behavior or the network cards and everything from a network perspective.

The solution could use some additional components of the network culture, not only VMs. I'd like to see some additional security features because what they currently have concentrates only on the network. As we have SOC, we should also have NOC.

I've been using this solution for two years. 

This is a stable system providing stable performance. 

This solution is scalable as are all Azure products. Azure Firewall, for example, will automatically extend if there is any issue. 

As a Microsoft golden partner, we have very good technical support. If I open a ticket, I might get a response in five or 10 minutes depending on the urgency of the problem. 

The initial setup is straightforward.

This is an expensive solution suited to enterprise organizations. A small company won't be able to afford Network Watcher. 

For a multinational company or a high enterprise organization, I believe Azure is the best way to go. If you don't need everything this product provides or it's not suitable for the size of your company, you can use a free solution and save money on licensing fees.

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

We use Network Watcher for the troubleshooting purposes. The rest of the networking solutions, such as Network Security Groups for ACLs and site-to-site VPNs, are also included. The VPN Gateway is mostly used for those kinds of solutions.

We mostly use Network Watcher to diagnose issues like routing problems and incorrectly configured rules with the local gateway. We typically use Fortinet as the local gateway to the VPN gateway in Azure. When problems arise, we use Network Watcher to capture and analyze packets.

User experience could be improved.

I have been using Azure Network Watcher for four years.

The stability is very good. I rate it a ten out of ten.

150 employees are using this solution. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight or nine out of ten.

Support is very good.

Positive

The deployment was easy and can be done within a couple of hours. It required two technicians for completion. I rate it an eight out of ten.

The solution saves time for implementation and troubleshooting issues. It saved 50% of the time.

I recommend the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our use case includes logs, mainly. 

I like the visibility. 

The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier.

I have been using this solution for two years. 

It is stable. It is good. 

It is scalable enough for our company. 

The customer service and support are quite good.

Neutral

I used AWS, Azure, and SAP.

The initial setup is quite challenging until you get to know what you need to do.

It took us a month to deploy it.

The pricing is good. It's not too expensive.

It's important to have visibility. Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We are using Azure Network Watcher to monitor logs or conditions in the cloud services.

The main purpose is to monitor the logs. Once the services are deployed to the cloud, we will primarily check for any log failures or diagnose any issues with the services we have implemented. Additionally, we will enable logs for virtual networks, specifically for virtual machines where we create the services. By enabling these logs, we will be able to closely monitor for any log failures.

The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is using the gateways with the connections. The monitoring is useful for the logs and application insights into the data. The traffic filtering issues when it comes to deploying those applications are helpful.

Azure Network Watcher allows for the isolation of network segments, where you can apply filters to the logs. This allows for more organized monitoring of the networks and the ability to deploy firewalls. It also includes features such as connection and time limits for monitoring, as well as the ability to create a dedicated virtual machine network for logs. This allows for more efficient monitoring and the ability to avoid connection limits and set specific times for monitoring client requests.

The solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved.

In a future release, it would be helpful to have a monitoring tool that can have
a pictorial representation of all the logs. This way people can understand exactly what the issues are visually.

I have been using Azure Network Watcher for approximately four years.

When it comes to the stability of Azure Network Watcher, other monitoring tools have high availability, and Azure Network Watcher allows for maintaining stability as well. I use Splunk and other tools for monitoring. This is because, while Azure Network Watcher is mainly for monitoring Azure services, Splunk is more comprehensive and can be used for monitoring things outside of Azure as well. In terms of stability, the initial setup may take some time, but overall Azure Network Watcher is a good option when compared to other monitoring tools in terms of stability, scalability, and reliability.

I rate the stability of Azure Network Watcher eight out of ten.

As a DevOps Azure cloud service provider, our team consists of seven to eight people. Currently, I am working with Capgemini America on a project for State Farm. Our team is divided into smaller teams, each working on a specific product such as home insurance, auto insurance, and fire insurance. While each team works independently on their respective products, we do not combine efforts for a single team project.

In order to ensure high scalability, we use Kubernetes for scaling. Kubernetes has been effective in maintaining high scalability and preventing any issues with client technology. There may be times when services become low, and in those cases, we need to work harder to increase the Kubernetes ports to achieve high scalability.

During times of high usages, such as during the COVID pandemic, it becomes important to closely monitor logs to address any issues that may arise. In these situations, client-side issues such as crashes may occur and it becomes necessary to quickly increase the number of ports and maintain scalability. This can be a time-consuming process and may cause disruptions if not addressed promptly.

I rate the scalability of Azure Network Watcher an eight out of ten.

I do receive support from them Azure Network Watcher. At times, I have difficulty and I am not proficient in all areas. During those times, if there is an urgent requirement from a client or a need to submit a set of logs, I seek technical support. Even now, I may encounter trouble and seek assistance from others.

There are complexities involved in using the solution, I find it challenging to complete the task within the given timeframe. During those times, I seek assistance from my team and technical support to help me overcome these difficulties. I often turn to team members who have more experience and a strong understanding of Azure Network Watcher for guidance and support. This has been helpful in addressing the challenges I face.

I rate the support from Azure Network Watcher an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup involves navigating and signing into the portal and creating the necessary resources for the Azure Network Watcher. This process of creating the resource may take more time initially, but once it is set up, it will be easy to manage incoming services. This will involve creating a virtual network and a separate resource group.

I rate the initial setup of Azure Network Watcher an eight out of ten.

I would advise others Azure Network Watcher is a useful tool for monitoring virtual machines, application gateways, load balancers, and networks. It provides advanced and precise monitoring of clients or jobs. It's a good tool for monitoring, but there are other ways to monitor. Specifically, when compared to other monitoring tools, Azure Network Watcher is better in terms of stability and availability for our use case. It is a reliable monitoring tool.

I rate Azure Network Watcher a nine out of ten.

My primary use case is for troubleshooting some traffic between BMs for example, or from on-prem to the cloud. Because typically in my organization we have many layers of traffic and many energies.

The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture.

I would like to see in the future if we can troubleshoot as a firewall because it is equipment as a network player and some diagnostics. It would be even helpful if we can improve Azure Network Watcher to have some scope to identify missing rules.

I have been working with Azure Network Watcher for more than five years now.

We have high reliability.

There is scalability and we currently have two hundred subscriptions.

The initial setup was straightforward and not complex. We have created an automation feature that allows for minimizing any delayed deployments.

I would rate Azure Network Watcher an eight out of ten.