🔹 Feature: Azure Private Link Service Direct Connect — Bring On-Premises and Multi-Cloud Servers Into Private Link
🔹 What It Does: Allows you to expose your on-premises servers — or servers running in any other cloud — via Azure Private Link.
What Is It Giving You:
✅ Private Link for On-Premises Servers: Expose a database, ERP, mainframe, or legacy line-of-business app sitting in your own data center as a Private Link service — consumed by customers, partners, or other tenants through a standard Private Endpoint. No public IP, no internet egress, no Load Balancer in front of the on-prem box.
✅ Private Link for Servers in OTHER Clouds: Privately routable destination = any IP reachable from your Azure VNet via ExpressRoute, S2S VPN, or peering. That includes AWS, GCP, OCI, or any third-party SaaS hosted outside Azure. Multi-cloud Private Link with one consistent consumption model.
✅ Bypass the Load Balancer Requirement: Direct IP-based routing — no Standard Load Balancer needed in the design. Cleaner architecture, fewer components, lower cost.
✅ Custom & Legacy App Friendly: Perfect for applications requiring direct static-IP connections (databases, custom protocols, legacy stacks) that never worked well behind a load balancer forwarder.
✅ User-Defined Routing (UDR) Support: Combine PLS with UDRs for precise control — route Private Endpoint traffic through NVAs, firewalls, or specific paths before hitting the destination.
✅ Up to 10 Gbps per PLS: Plenty of headroom for transactional databases, file transfers, and high-volume API workloads.
For hybrid and multi-cloud architectures — and especially for banks and regulated industries — this turns Azure Private Link into a true cross-environment connectivity service, not just an Azure-internal one. 🚀
🌐 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/private-link/configure-private-link-service-direct-connect
