Azure Service Endpoints vs Private Link

Virtual Network (VNet) service endpoint provides secure and direct connectivity to Azure services over an optimized route over the Azure backbone network. Endpoints allow you to secure your critical Azure service resources to only your virtual networks. Service Endpoints enables private IP addresses in the VNet to reach the endpoint of an Azure service without needing a public IP address on the VNet.

Service Endpoints do have some limitations or downsides. Firstly it is key to remember that traffic to a Service Endpoint is still leaving your virtual network, and the Azure PaaS resource is still being accessed on its public address. Service Endpoints cannot be used by traffic originating on-premises, through VPN or Express Route, only for traffic coming from your Azure Virtual Network.

Private Link is a newer solution than Service Endpoints, introduced about a year ago. The key difference between Private Link and Service Endpoints is that with Private Link you are injecting the multi-tenant PaaS resource into your virtual network. With Service Endpoints, traffic still left you vNet and hit the public endpoint of the PaaS resource, with Private Link the PaaS resource sits within your vNet and gets a private IP on your vNet. When you send traffic to the PaaS resource, it does not leave the virtual network.

Private Link also allows access from resources on your on-premises network through VPN or ExpressRoute, and from peered networks. You can also connect to resources across region.

How to choose?

According to https://samcogan.com/service-endpoints-and-private-link-whats-the-difference/

Service Endpoints are more straightforward and easier to set up than Private Link. You can enable Service Endpoints with a couple of clicks in the portal, and there is no requirement for any additional services. Private Link, however, requires you to implement DNS changes and possibly use Azure Private DNS, it also requires deciding where the service will attach to your Virtual Network. So if you need some additional access restriction for your PaaS Services quickly, or don’t have the rights or knowledge to make changes to DNS, then Service Endpoints are probably the way to go.

Other than complexity, Private Link is superior to Service Endpoints in nearly every other way.

Azure Load Balancing

There are various option that Azure provides for load balancing services that you can use to distribute your workloads across multiple computing resources.

• Application Gateway
• Front Door
• Load Balancer
• Traffic Manager

So how to choose? From https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/technology-choices/load-balancing-overview we can see the flowchart that can help us making the right choice.

Azure Private Endpoint, Private Link, and Private Link Service

Azure Private Endpoint

Azure Private Endpoint is a network interface that connects you privately and securely to a service powered by Azure Private Link. Private Endpoint uses a private IP address from your VNet, effectively bringing the service into your VNet. The service could be an Azure service such as Azure Storage, Azure Cosmos DB, SQL, etc.

Azure Private Link

Azure Private Link enables you to access Azure PaaS Services (for example, Azure Storage and SQL Database) and Azure hosted customer-owned/partner services over a private endpoint in your virtual network

Azure Private Link Service

Azure Private Link Service is the reference to your own service that is powered by Azure Private Link. Your service that is running behind Azure Standard Load Balancer can be enabled for Private Link access so that consumers to your service can access it privately from their own VNets. Your customers can create a private endpoint inside their VNet and map it to this service.

ExpressRoute Direct VS FastPath VS Global Reach

ExpressRoute Direct

ExpressRoute Direct gives you the ability to connect directly into Microsoft’s global network at peering locations strategically distributed around the world. ExpressRoute Direct provides dual 100 Gbps or 10-Gbps connectivity, which supports Active/Active connectivity at scale. You can work with any service provider for ER Direct.

ExpressRoute FastPath

ExpressRoute virtual network gateway is designed to exchange network routes and route network traffic. FastPath is designed to improve the data path performance between your on-premises network and your virtual network. When enabled, FastPath sends network traffic directly to virtual machines in the virtual network, bypassing the gateway.

ExpressRoute Global Reach

ExpressRoute Global Reach is designed to complement your service provider’s WAN implementation and connect your branch offices across the world. For example, if your service provider primarily operates in the United States and has linked all of your branches in the U.S., but the service provider doesn’t operate in Japan and Hong Kong, with ExpressRoute Global Reach you can work with a local service provider and Microsoft will connect your branches there to the ones in the U.S. using ExpressRoute and our global network.

ExpressRoute Private Peering VS Microsoft Peering in Azure

 

Azure Private Peering

Azure compute services, namely virtual machines (IaaS) and cloud services (PaaS), that are deployed within a virtual network can be connected through the private peering domain. The private peering domain is considered to be a trusted extension of your core network into Microsoft Azure. You can set up bi-directional connectivity between your core network and Azure virtual networks (VNets). This peering lets you connect to virtual machines and cloud services directly on their private IP addresses. You can connect more than one virtual network to the private peering domain.

Microsoft Peering

Connectivity to Microsoft online services (Microsoft 365 and Azure PaaS services) occurs through Microsoft peering. We enable bi-directional connectivity between your WAN and Microsoft cloud services through the Microsoft peering routing domain. You must connect to Microsoft cloud services only over public IP addresses that are owned by you or your connectivity provider and you must adhere to all the defined rules.

The recommended configuration is that private peering is connected directly to the core network, and the public and Microsoft peering links are connected to your DMZ.

Availability Sets VS Availability Zones in Azure

Availability Sets

Availability Sets is for virtual machine only. When you configure virtual machine with availability sets, it will make a copy of your virtual machine in isolated separate physical server, compute rack, storage units and network switches within a single datacentre within an Azure Region.

Availability Zones

Availability Zones can be use by many Azure Services including virtual machine. With Availably Zones, your workload will be spread out across the different zones that make up an Azure region. An Azure region is made up of multiple datacentres and each zone is made up of one or more datacentres.  Each datacentre is equipped with independent power, cooling and networking.

Availability Zone has better SLA compare to Availability Sets