AVS av36p Gen1 deployement pre-requisites

Question

We are planning to deploy AV36P Gen1 Azure VMware Solution (AVS) in the UK South region. Is it mandatory to have an ExpressRoute circuit already deployed on‑premises before starting the AVS deployment?

If it is not mandatory, can we proceed with the AVS deployment first and set up the ExpressRoute connection later? Will that approach work without issues?

Answer 1

Hello Venkata Rama,

Thank you for reaching out regarding the deployment prerequisites for Azure VMware Solution (AVS) using AV36P Gen1 hosts in the UK South region.

An on‑premises Azure ExpressRoute circuit is not strictly required before starting the deployment of an AVS private cloud. The AVS deployment process provisions the private cloud infrastructure first, and network connectivity can be configured after the deployment is completed.

If connectivity between the AVS private cloud and your on‑premises environment is required, this can be established at a later stage by connecting your on‑premises ExpressRoute circuit to the Microsoft‑managed ExpressRoute circuit created as part of the AVS deployment. For AVS Gen1, this is typically done using ExpressRoute Global Reach. This is a supported and commonly used approach and does not require redeploying the AVS private cloud.

Microsoft documentation also confirms that AVS supports Azure‑only interconnectivity initially, with on‑premises connectivity added later as needed, depending on your requirements.

For more details, please refer to the following official Microsoft documentation:

Plan the Azure VMware Solution deployment

Deploy and configure Azure VMware Solution

Networking planning checklist for Azure VMware Solution

Peer on-premises environments to Azure VMware Solution

Azure VMware Solution networking and interconnectivity concepts

Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any queries.