What is Azure Private Link and Private Endpoint?

Azure Private Endpoint is a network interface in your VNet that connects privately to an Azure PaaS service (Storage, SQL, Key Vault, Cosmos DB, etc.) using Azure Private Link. Traffic between your VNet and the service travels over the Microsoft backbone network, never over the public internet. The PaaS service gets a private IP address in your VNet. You can then disable public internet access to the service entirely. Benefits: Data exfiltration prevention (no traffic leaves the Microsoft network), compliance (satisfy regulations requiring private connectivity), no NAT or gateway overhead. Private Endpoints work across VNet peering and ExpressRoute. They are different from Service Endpoints, which keep traffic on the Microsoft backbone but use the service's public endpoint and cannot be used to disable public access entirely.