Windows Azure Virtual machines, Virtual network may not ping automatically

I created few windows azure virtual machines all added to a Windows azure virtual network, will explain in a later what I was trying to do. Once everything was setup, my first test was to make sure the Virtual machines are able to talk to each other.

According to windows azure, if your virtual machines are within a single virtual network, then you don’t need to open any ports or endpoint to make them talk to each other. But unfortunately I was not able to ping the other machines.

But if the Virtual machine is Windows 2012 or Windows 2008 R2, by default the OS firewall rule does not allow ICMP(PING), so you need to enable these rules, this is the same behaviour when you have a Windows server on premise.

Follow the steps outlined here on all the Virtual machines  and bingo, now I’m able to ping the machines.

1. In the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security snap-in, click Inbound Rules in the tree, and click New Rule in the Actions Pane.
2. Click Custom and click Next.
3. Click All programs and click Next.
4. For Protocol type, select ICMPv4.
5. Click Customize for Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) settings.
6. Click Echo Request, click OK, and then click Next.
7. Under Which local IP address does this rule match? and for Which remote IP address does this rule match click either Any IP address or These IP Addresses. If you click These IP addresses, specify the IP addresses and click Add, then click Next.
8. Click Allow the connection, and then click Next.
9. Under When does this rule apply?, click the active profile, any or all profiles (Domain, Private, Public) to which you want this rule to apply, and then click Next.
10. For Name type a name for this rule and for Description an optional description. Click Finish.
11. Repeat steps for ICMPv6, selecting ICMPv6 for Protocol Type instead of ICMPv4.