Azure Relay

Azure Relay is a service in Azure that enables you to securely expose services that reside within a corporate enterprise network to the public cloud, without opening up any inbound firewall ports or requiring any VPN setup. It provides a bi-directional communication channel between clients and services using a set of relay endpoints.


How to use Azure Relay explained with example

Suppose you have a web service or API that resides within your corporate network, and you want to expose it to the public cloud for external clients to access. Instead of opening up inbound ports on your firewall, you can use Azure Relay to create a hybrid connection that securely relays requests between the external clients and the internal service.

To set up the Azure Relay, you would need to follow these steps 

1. Create a Relay namespace in Azure and configure it with appropriate settings.

2. Create a hybrid connection that represents the connection between the Relay namespace and your internal service. This requires installing the Relay Hybrid Connections Manager on the machine that hosts your internal service.

3. Configure your web service or API to use the hybrid connection to communicate with the Relay namespace.

4. Use the connection string provided by Azure Relay to connect to the endpoint and send requests.

Once the connection is established, external clients can communicate with your internal service by sending requests to the endpoint provided by Azure Relay. The requests are relayed through the hybrid connection to the internal service, and the responses are returned through the same channel.

Azure Relay supports various protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, and AMQP, and can be used for a wide range of scenarios, such as enabling hybrid integration between on-premises and cloud services, exposing internal APIs to external partners, and connecting mobile or IoT devices securely to on-premises services.


Azure Relay Limitations

Some limitations and considerations to keep in mind when using Azure Relay are

1. Relay connections are bi-directional, but they are not intended for high volume data transfer or real-time streaming scenarios. The primary use case is for request/response messaging scenarios with relatively low traffic.

2. Azure Relay requires a network connection from the on-premises service to Azure. If there is limited connectivity or network restrictions in place, it may not be possible to use Azure Relay.

3. The Relay Hybrid Connections Manager must be installed on the machine that hosts the on-premises service. This can be a potential security risk if the machine is not properly secured.

4. Azure Relay currently supports only HTTP, HTTPS, and AMQP protocols. Other protocols such as TCP or FTP are not supported.

5. There are limitations to the size of messages that can be transferred over Azure Relay. The current limit is 100 MB for HTTP/HTTPS and 256 KB for AMQP.

6. Azure Relay uses polling to check for new messages, which can introduce some latency in message delivery. This may not be suitable for scenarios that require real-time messaging.


Azure Relay Usage

Azure Relay is a versatile solution that can be used to connect a wide range of services and scenarios such as

Web APIs and web services 

On-premises services that expose APIs or web services can be connected to Azure Relay to allow external clients to securely access them.


Databases 

On-premises databases can be connected to Azure Relay to allow external clients to securely query or modify data.


Messaging systems 

On-premises messaging systems such as IBM MQ, TIBCO EMS, or Apache ActiveMQ can be connected to Azure Relay to allow external clients to send and receive messages.


File shares 

On-premises file shares can be connected to Azure Relay to allow external clients to securely access files and folders.


Applications 

Any on-premises applications that can communicate over TCP/IP or HTTP/HTTPS can be connected to Azure Relay to enable hybrid scenarios.


Internet of Things (IoT) devices 

IoT devices can be connected to Azure Relay to securely communicate with on-premises services or databases.


Partners and suppliers 

On-premises services that are used by partners or suppliers can be connected to Azure Relay to enable secure and controlled access.


How to monitor and troubleshoot Azure Relay connections?

Azure Relay provides several tools and features to monitor and troubleshoot connections

Metrics and logs 

Azure Relay provides metrics and logs that can be used to monitor the health and performance of the service. You can use Azure Monitor to monitor metrics such as the number of successful and failed connections, the latency of requests, and the amount of data transferred.


Diagnostics logs 

Azure Relay generates diagnostic logs that provide detailed information about the service, such as connection failures, errors, and warnings. You can use these logs to troubleshoot issues and identify the root cause of problems.


Hybrid Connection Manager logs 

The Hybrid Connection Manager (HCM) generates logs that provide detailed information about the communication between the on-premises service and the Azure Relay service. You can use these logs to troubleshoot issues with the on-premises service or with the HCM itself.


Azure Relay Test Client 

The Azure Relay Test Client is a tool that can be used to test and validate connections to Azure Relay. You can use this tool to verify that your Relay endpoints are configured correctly and that your clients can connect to the service.


Azure Service Health 

Azure Service Health provides real-time information about the health of Azure services, including Azure Relay. You can use this tool to check for any known issues or service outages that may be affecting your connections.


Azure Relay provides a range of monitoring and troubleshooting tools that can help you diagnose and resolve issues with your Relay connections. By using these tools proactively, you can ensure that your Relay connections are reliable, performant, and secure.


Azure Relay Pricing Model

Azure Relay offers two pricing models are

Basic tier 

The Basic tier is designed for low-volume scenarios, and charges a flat rate per relay unit-hour. A relay unit-hour is defined as one hour of operation for a single relay unit. The Basic tier also includes 5 GB of data transfer per month.


Standard tier 

The Standard tier is designed for high-volume scenarios and offers a more flexible pricing model based on data transfer volume. You are charged a flat rate per gigabyte (GB) of data transfer, with discounts available for higher volume tiers.


In both pricing tiers, you are also charged for the number of active connections to the relay. The Basic tier charges a flat rate per active connection, while the Standard tier charges a lower rate for the first 10,000 active connections, and a higher rate for additional connections.

It's important to note that there are also additional charges for using features such as Hybrid Connections and Azure SignalR Service with Azure Relay.

You can use the Azure pricing calculator to estimate the cost of using Azure Relay based on your specific usage patterns and requirements.

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