The least amount of network interfaces needed for this configuration is one network interface per VM.
Each virtual machine (VM) in Azure requires at least one network interface. In this scenario, you need to deploy five VMs, each with both a public and private IP address. To achieve this, you would need to create five network interfaces, one for each VM.
Each network interface can be associated with both a public IP address (for inbound connections) and a private IP address (for internal communication within the virtual network). By configuring the appropriate security rules, you can ensure that the inbound and outbound traffic for all five VMs is identical.
Therefore, the least amount of network interfaces needed for this configuration is one network interface per VM, resulting in a total of five network interfaces.