Implement network isolation for data solutions, including Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Synapse Analytics is an integrated analytics service that brings together big data and data warehousing. Securing it involves several steps:

Virtual Network Service Endpoints

Virtual Network (VNet) service endpoints extend your VNet’s private address space and identity to Azure Synapse. Traffic from your VNet to Synapse Analytics goes directly into the service without traversing the internet.

Example: Suppose you have data that should only be accessible within your organization’s VNet. By enabling a service endpoint for Synapse Analytics, you can ensure data remains within the VNet and does not traverse the public internet.

Private Endpoint

Private Endpoints create a private IP within your VNet for the Synapse Analytics workspace. This ensures that data traffic is sent privately through the VNet, rather than over the public internet.

Example: You can use a private endpoint to securely connect to your Synapse workspace from on-premises networks or peered VNets.

Network Security Groups (NSGs)

NSGs can be used to control inbound and outbound traffic to network interfaces (NIC), VMs, and subnets. By default, all inbound traffic to Synapse is blocked. You can customize NSG rules to allow traffic from specific sources.

Example: Create an NSG rule that only allows traffic on port 1433 for SQL data warehouse communication coming from your corporate IP range.

Firewall

The Azure Synapse Analytics firewall lets you define rules that allow traffic from specified IP address ranges, ensuring that only authorized traffic can access your workspace.

Example: You might configure the firewall to only allow connections from the IPs of your corporate office and a set of designated Azure VMs.

Azure Cosmos DB Network Isolation

Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model NoSQL database service. To enhance security with network isolation, you can use the following:

VNet Service Endpoints

These enable you to secure your Azure Cosmos DB account to only a specific VNet, similar to Synapse Analytics.

Example: Protect your Cosmos DB account by only allowing access from your production VNet, thus preventing any other network from accessing your data.

Private Endpoint

Private endpoints in Cosmos DB provide secure connectivity from your VNet, using a private IP from your VNet address space.

Example: Integrate your Cosmos DB account with your private network to ensure that all traffic between your VMs and Cosmos DB stays on the Microsoft Backbone network, without hitting the public internet.

IP Firewall

Cosmos DB allows you to specify a set of IP address ranges that are allowed to access your data. This is an additional measure if your Cosmos DB instances shouldn’t be publicly accessible.

Example: Allow only your corporate outbound IP address range to communicate with your Cosmos DB account.

NSGs

Similar to Synapse Analytics, you can control access to and from your Azure Cosmos DB account using NSG rules.

Example: Configure NSGs to only allow Cosmos DB traffic from your application servers, and block all other traffic.

To illustrate the differences and similarities in network isolation between Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Cosmos DB, consider the following table:

Network isolation ensures that only trusted sources can access and interact with Azure data services. By properly configuring VNet service endpoints, private endpoints, NSGs, and firewalls, organizations can significantly enhance the security of their Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Cosmos DB instances.

Keep in mind that enabling network isolation features may require updates to application connection strings and network configurations to ensure proper connectivity. Network changes should be carefully planned and tested to prevent disruptions to your services while improving security.