Understand Microsoft Power Platform architecture to use with ExpressRoute
When setting up ExpressRoute for Microsoft Power Platform, it's important to know the underlying architecture to understand what can be configured.
Regions and environments
Microsoft Power Platform is built on top of Microsoft Azure infrastructure, deployed across various regions around the world. Each deployment is called an environment, and these environments are associated with a particular region.
Each Microsoft Power Platform region has a pair of datacenters. The diagram shows four different regions: Oceania, Great Britain, North America, and Europe. Each of these regions has a pair. For example, the North America region has West US and East US datacenters in this example. Scale groups exist within each datacenter. There are several scale groups including canary group, sandbox group, and production scale groups.
Each environment is contained inside a scale group—a shared infrastructure that provides a maintainable and scalable infrastructure set. A scale group hosts multiple customer organizations, each with their own database but with shared service infrastructure. It uses various Azure services, including Azure SQL, Azure Virtual Machines, and Azure Cache for Redis. These scale groups are set in pairs for each region the customer has selected. For example, selecting United States as the region will create scale groups in West US and East US.
One common misunderstanding is whether ExpressRoute can be set up between Microsoft Power Platform and Azure services, and the answer is no. As explained in the preceding discussion of infrastructure, Microsoft Power Platform uses a shared service infrastructure; ExpressRoute is a connection that's set up only to the edge of Microsoft's datacenter.
ExpressRoute is a technology that provides a private connection between your on-premises network and the "entrance" to the cloud service. Therefore, any network connections within the same cloud—in this case, Microsoft Power Platform and Azure services—can't be set up with ExpressRoute.
Because Microsoft Power Platform doesn't have designated Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) communities like Microsoft 365 does, you must use two regional BGP communities for the region you've selected.
For example, if you've selected Europe as the region you'd like to use for your Microsoft Power Platform environment, and you'd like to connect that environment with ExpressRoute, you must select West Europe and North Europe as the two regional BGP communities. You can find the regional pair you'll need to set up by going to Power Automate regions overview.
Connectors
Connectors are a great way of connecting to Microsoft first-party services—in addition to third-party services—with Microsoft Power Platform, allowing you to connect with over 400 different services and apps. One of the details you should take into consideration is how connectors connect to various services and how this will affect your connectivity with ExpressRoute.
Connectors use Azure API Management behind the scenes to manage the credentials and connections from each user.
These connections are then directed to various data sources. For Microsoft connectors, the connections are within the Microsoft datacenter. Connectors that are non-Microsoft services are accessed via the public internet.
On-premises data gateway
Using an on-premises data gateway enables you to connect to your on-premises services with Microsoft Power Platform in a secure way by using Azure behind the scenes. Any data transmitted via the on-premises data gateway is sent via Azure Service Bus, as shown in the following image.
The gateway cloud service encrypts and stores data source credentials and on-premises data gateway details. It routes queries and results between cloud services, the on-premises data gateway, and the data source. Azure Service Bus is used to transmit data between the gateway cloud service and the on-premises data gateway. The on-premises data gateway decrypts data source credentials and connects to a data source. It sends queries to the data source and returns the results to the gateway cloud service.
The gateway uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 to communicate between the on-premises data gateway and Microsoft Power Platform services.
The on-premises data gateway connects to one datacenter region per gateway. When setting up the gateway, you should consider setting the datacenter region to the closest region, to minimize latency. More information: On-premises data gateway architecture
Depending on the connector you use with on-premises systems, implementing ExpressRoute doesn't necessarily mean that you can remove the on-premises data gateway. This is because the on-premises data gateway includes functionality that converts data. For example, with SQL Server, the on-premises data gateway converts protocol from OData requests to SQL Data Manipulation Language statements.
Therefore, enabling ExpressRoute doesn't completely remove the need to implement an on-premises data gateway. Be sure to check each connector you're using in the list of connectors to determine whether an on-premises gateway will still be required.
An on-premises data gateway is used when connecting to on-premises systems from Microsoft Power Platform. The gateway connects on-premises systems with Microsoft Power Platform by using Azure Service Bus.
Content Delivery Network
Microsoft Power Platform uses Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) to optimize performance and user experiences when using static content such as images and icons. This static content served by the Content Delivery Network can't be routed via ExpressRoute, so it will be routed directly across the public internet. However, this content uses common platform capabilities that contain no customer data; therefore, the content need not be considered a candidate for protection over private networks like ExpressRoute.
Note
For canvas apps specifically, CDN can be turned off using a setting Load default static content from Content Delivery Network by system administrators in case of firewall restrictions and IP approved list related issues. This setting does not apply to model-driven apps as they do not use CDN currently. More information: Manage behavior settings
Azure Relay
Microsoft Power Automate uses Azure Relay for direct connectivity between Power Automate cloud flows and desktop flows in Power Automate for Desktop. It uses HTTPS and data is encrypted when transmitted between the computer and the cloud. However to make sure that the traffic is not transmitted through public internet you may use ExpressRoute Instead. For further information on network settings required, and also to understand the architecture in detail, read the section on Power Automate architecture.
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