Service endpoints and personal endpoints hands-on: together with Azure Spine, storage account firewall, DNS, VNET and NSGs
Storage accounts play an important position in a medallion structure for establishing an enterprise knowledge lake. They act as a centralized repository, enabling seamless knowledge change between producers and customers. This setup empowers customers to carry out knowledge science duties and construct machine studying (ML) fashions. Moreover, customers can use the information for Retrieval Augmented Era (RAG), facilitating interplay with firm knowledge by means of Massive Language Fashions (LLMs) like ChatGPT.
Extremely delicate knowledge is often saved within the storage account. Protection in depth measures should be in place earlier than knowledge scientists and ML pipelines can entry the information. To do protection in depth, a number of measurement shall be in place similar to 1) superior menace safety to detect malware, 2) authentication utilizing Microsoft Entra, 3) authorization to do superb grained entry management, 4) audit path to observe entry, 5) knowledge exfiltration prevention, 6) encryption, and final however not least 7) community entry management utilizing service endpoint or non-public endpoints.
This text focuses on community entry management of the storage account. Within the subsequent chapter, the completely different ideas are defined (demystified) on storage account community entry. Following that, a hands-on comparability is finished between service endpoint and personal endpoints. Lastly, a conclusion is drawn.
A typical situation is {that a} digital machine must have community entry to a storage account. This digital machine usually acts as a Spark cluster to investigate knowledge from the storage account. The picture beneath supplies an outline of the obtainable community entry controls.
The parts within the picture will be described as follows:
Azure international community — spine: Site visitors at all times goes over Azure spine between two areas (except buyer forces to not do it), see additionally Microsoft international community — Azure | Microsoft Study. That is no matter what firewall rule is used within the storage account and regardless whether or not service endpoints or non-public endpoints are used.
Azure storage firewalls: Firewall guidelines can prohibit or disable public entry. Widespread guidelines embrace whitelisting VNET/subnet, public IP addresses, system-assigned managed identities as useful resource situations, or permitting trusted companies. When a VNET/subnet is whitelisted, the Azure Storage account identifies the visitors’s origin and its non-public IP tackle. Nevertheless, the storage account itself just isn’t built-in into the VNET/subnet — non-public endpoints are wanted for that function.
Public DNS storage account: Storage accounts will at all times have a public DNS that may be entry through community tooling, see additionally Azure Storage Account — Public Entry Disabled — however nonetheless some stage of connectivity — Microsoft Q&A. That’s, even when public entry is disabled within the storage account firewall, the general public DNS will stay.
Digital Community (VNET): Community through which digital machines are deployed. Whereas a storage account is rarely deployed inside a VNET, the VNET will be whitelisted within the Azure storage firewall. Alternatively, the VNET can create a personal endpoint for safe, non-public connectivity.
Service endpoints: When whitelisting a VNET/subnet within the Storage account firewall, the service endpoint should be turned on for the VNET/subnet. The service endpoint must be Microsoft.Storage when the VNET and storage account are in the identical area or Microsoft.Storage.International when the VNET and storage are in several areas. Word that service endpoints can be used as an overarching time period, encompassing each the whitelisting of a VNET/subnet on the Azure Storage Firewall and the enabling of the service endpoint on the VNET/subnet.
Non-public endpoints: Integrating a Community Interface Card (NIC) of a Storage Account inside the VNET the place the digital machine operates. This integration assigns the storage account a personal IP tackle, making it a part of the VNET.
Non-public DNS storage account: Inside a VNET, a personal DNS zone will be created through which the storage account DNS resolves to the non-public endpoint. That is to ensure that digital machine can nonetheless hook up with the URL of the storage account and the URL of the storage account resolves to a personal IP tackle somewhat than a public tackle.
Community Safety Group (NSG): Deploy an NSG to restrict inbound and outbound entry of the VNET the place the digital machine runs. This may forestall knowledge exfiltration. Nevertheless, an NSG works solely with IP addresses or tags, not with URLs. For extra superior knowledge exfiltration safety, use an Azure Firewall. For simplicity, the article omits this and makes use of NSG to dam outbound visitors.
Within the subsequent chapter, service endpoints and personal endpoints are mentioned.
The chapter begins by exploring the situation of unrestricted community entry. Then the small print of service endpoints and personal endpoints are mentioned with sensible examples.
3.1 Not limiting community entry — public entry enabled
Suppose the next situation through which a digital machine and a storage account is created. The firewall of the storage account has public entry enabled, see picture beneath.
Utilizing this configuration, a the digital machine can entry the storage account over the community. For the reason that digital machine can be deployed in Azure, visitors will go over Azure Spine and will probably be accepted, see picture beneath.
Enterprises usually set up firewall guidelines to restrict community entry. This includes disabling public entry or permitting solely chosen networks and whitelisting particular ones. The picture beneath illustrates public entry being disabled and visitors being blocked by the firewall.
Within the subsequent paragraph, service endpoints and chosen community firewall guidelines are used to grant community entry to storage account once more.
3.2 Limiting community entry through Service endpoints
To allow digital machine VNET entry to the storage account, activate the service endpoint on the VNET. Use Microsoft.Storage for inside the areas or Microsoft.Storage.International for cross area. Subsequent, whitelist the VNET/subnet within the storage account firewall. Site visitors is then blocked once more, see additionally picture beneath.
Site visitors is now accepted. When VNET/subnet is faraway from Azure storage account firewall or public entry is disabled, then visitors is blocked once more.
In case an NSG is used to dam public outbound IPs within the VNET of the digital machine, then visitors can be blocked once more. It is because the general public DNS of the storage account is used, see additionally picture beneath.
In that case, non-public endpoints shall be used to ensure that visitors doesn’t depart VNET. That is mentioned within the subsequent chapter.
3.3 Limiting entry through Non-public endpoints
To reestablish community entry for the digital machine to the storage account, use a personal endpoint. This motion creates a community interface card (NIC) for the storage account inside the VNET of the digital machine, guaranteeing that visitors stays inside the VNET. The picture beneath supplies additional illustration.
Once more, an NSG can be utilized once more to dam all visitors, see picture beneath.
That is nevertheless counterintuitive, since first a personal endpoint is created within the VNET after which visitors is blocked by NSG in the identical VNET.
Enterprise at all times requires community guidelines in place to restrict community entry to their storage account. On this weblog submit, each service endpoints and personal endpoint are thought of to restrict entry.
Each is true for service endpoints and personal endpoints:
For service endpoints, the next maintain:
- Requires to allow service endpoints on VNET/subnet and whitelisting of VNET/subnet in Azure storage account firewall.
- Requires that visitors leaves the VNET of the digital machine that’s connecting to the storage account. See above, the visitors stays on the Azure spine.
For personal endpoints, the next maintain:
- Public entry will be disabled within the Azure Storage firewall. See above, public DNS entry of storage account will stay.
- Site visitors doesn’t depart the VNET through which the digital machine additionally runs.
There are numerous different issues to think about whether or not to make use of service endpoints or non-public endpoints (prices, migration effort since service endpoints have been on the market longer than non-public endpoints, networking complexity when utilizing non-public endpoints, restricted service endpoint assist of newer Azure companies, exhausting restrict of quantity non-public endpoints in storage account of 200).
Nevertheless, in case it’s required (“should have”) that 1) visitors shall by no means depart VNET/subnet of digital machine or 2) it’s not allowed to create firewall guidelines in Azure storage firewall and should be locked down, then service endpoint just isn’t possible.
In different eventualities, it’s attainable to think about each options, and one of the best match must be decided primarily based on the precise necessities of every situation.
