Connectivity architecture in Azure Database for MariaDB
Important
Azure Database for MariaDB is on the retirement path. We strongly recommend for you to migrate to Azure Database for MySQL. For more information about migrating to Azure Database for MySQL, see What's happening to Azure Database for MariaDB?
This article explains the Azure Database for MariaDB connectivity architecture and how the traffic is directed to your Azure Database for MariaDB instance from clients both within and outside Azure.
Connectivity architecture
Connection to your Azure Database for MariaDB is established through a gateway that is responsible for routing incoming connections to the physical location of your server in our clusters. The following diagram illustrates the traffic flow.
As client connects to the database, the connection string to the server resolves to the gateway IP address. The gateway listens on the IP address on port 3306. Inside the database cluster, traffic is forwarded to appropriate Azure Database for MariaDB. Therefore, in order to connect to your server, such as from corporate networks, it's necessary to open up the client-side firewall to allow outbound traffic to be able to reach our gateways. Below you can find a complete list of the IP addresses used by our gateways per region.
Azure Database for MariaDB gateway IP addresses
The gateway service is hosted on group of stateless compute nodes sitting behind an IP address, which your client would reach first when trying to connect to an Azure Database for MariaDB server.
As part of ongoing service maintenance, we'll periodically refresh compute hardware hosting the gateways to ensure we provide the most secure and performant experience. When the gateway hardware is refreshed, a new ring of the compute nodes is built out first. This new ring serves the traffic for all the newly created Azure Database for MariaDB servers and it will have a different IP address from older gateway rings in the same region to differentiate the traffic. Once the new ring is fully functional, the older gateway hardware serving existing servers are planned for decommissioning. Before decommissioning a gateway hardware, customers running their servers and connecting to older gateway rings will be notified via email and in the Azure portal, three months in advance before decommissioning. The decommissioning of gateways can impact the connectivity to your servers if
- You hard code the gateway IP addresses in the connection string of your application. It is not recommended. You should use fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your server in the format
<servername>.mariadb.database.azure.com, in the connection string for your application. - You don't update the newer gateway IP addresses in the client-side firewall to allow outbound traffic to be able to reach our new gateway rings.
The following table lists the gateway IP addresses of the Azure Database for MariaDB gateway for all data regions. The most up-to-date information of the gateway IP addresses for each region is maintained in the table below. In the table below, the columns represent following:
- Gateway IP addresses: This column lists the current IP addresses of the gateways hosted on the latest generation of hardware. If you're provisioning a new server, we recommend that you open the client-side firewall to allow outbound traffic for the IP addresses listed in this column.
- Gateway IP addresses (decommissioning): This column lists the IP addresses of the gateways hosted on an older generation of hardware that is being decommissioned right now. If you're provisioning a new server, you can ignore these IP addresses. If you have an existing server, continue to retain the outbound rule for the firewall for these IP addresses as we haven't decommissioned it yet. If you drop the firewall rules for these IP addresses, you may get connectivity errors. Instead, you're expected to proactively add the new IP addresses listed in Gateway IP addresses column to the outbound firewall rule as soon as you receive the notification for decommissioning. This will ensure when your server is migrated to latest gateway hardware, there's no interruptions in connectivity to your server.
- Gateway IP addresses (decommissioned): This column lists the IP addresses of the gateway rings, which are decommissioned and are no longer in operations. You can safely remove these IP addresses from your outbound firewall rule.
| Region name | Gateway IP addresses | Gateway IP addresses (decommissioning) | Gateway IP addresses (decommissioned) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia Central | 20.36.105.0 | ||
| Australia Central2 | 20.36.113.0 | ||
| Australia East | 40.79.161.1, 13.70.112.32 | 13.75.149.87 | |
| Australia South East | 13.77.49.33, 191.239.192.109 | 13.73.109.251 | |
| Brazil South | 191.233.201.8, 191.233.200.16 | 104.41.11.5 | |
| Canada Central | 40.85.224.249 | ||
| Canada East | 40.69.105.32 | 40.86.226.166 | |
| Central US | 23.99.160.139, 52.182.136.37, 52.182.136.38 | 13.67.215.62 | |
| China East | 139.219.130.35 | ||
| China East 2 | 40.73.82.1 | ||
| China North | 139.219.15.17 | ||
| China North 2 | 40.73.50.0 | ||
| East Asia | 191.234.2.139, 52.175.33.150, 13.75.33.20, 13.75.33.21 | ||
| East US | 40.71.8.203, 40.71.83.113 | 40.121.158.30 | 191.238.6.43 |
| East US 2 | 40.70.144.38, 52.167.105.38 | 52.177.185.181 | |
| France Central | 40.79.137.0, 40.79.129.1 | ||
| France South | 40.79.177.0, 40.79.176.40 | ||
| Germany Central | 51.4.144.100 | ||
| Germany North | 51.116.56.0 | ||
| Germany North East | 51.5.144.179 | ||
| Germany West Central | 51.116.152.0 | ||
| India Central | 104.211.96.159 | ||
| India South | 104.211.224.146 | ||
| India West | 104.211.144.32 | 104.211.160.80 | |
| Japan East | 40.79.192.23, 40.79.184.8 | 13.78.61.196 | |
| Japan West | 191.238.68.11, 40.74.96.6, 40.74.96.7 | 104.214.148.156 | |
| Korea Central | 52.231.17.13 | 52.231.32.42 | |
| Korea South | 52.231.145.3 | 52.231.200.86 | |
| North Central US | 52.162.104.35, 52.162.104.36 | 23.96.178.199 | |
| North Europe | 52.138.224.6, 52.138.224.7 | 40.113.93.91 | 191.235.193.75 |
| South Africa North | 102.133.152.0 | ||
| South Africa West | 102.133.24.0 | ||
| South Central US | 104.214.16.39, 20.45.120.0 | 13.66.62.124 | 23.98.162.75 |
| South East Asia | 40.78.233.2, 23.98.80.12 | 104.43.15.0 | |
| Switzerland North | 51.107.56.0 | ||
| Switzerland West | 51.107.152.0 | ||
| UAE Central | 20.37.72.64 | ||
| UAE North | 65.52.248.0 | ||
| UK South | 51.140.184.11 | ||
| UK West | 51.141.8.11 | ||
| West Central US | 13.71.193.34 | 13.78.145.25 | |
| West Europe | 13.69.105.208, 104.40.169.187 | 40.68.37.158 | 191.237.232.75 |
| West US | 13.86.216.212, 13.86.217.212 | 104.42.238.205 | 23.99.34.75 |
| West US 2 | 13.66.226.202 |
Connection redirection
Azure Database for MariaDB supports another connection policy, redirection, that helps to reduce network latency between client applications and MariaDB servers. With this feature, after the initial TCP session is established to the Azure Database for MariaDB server, the server returns the backend address of the node hosting the MariaDB server to the client. Thereafter, all subsequent packets flow directly to the server, bypassing the gateway. As packets flow directly to the server, latency and throughput have improved performance.
This feature is supported in Azure Database for MariaDB servers with engine versions 10.2 and 10.3.
Support for redirection is available in the PHP mysqlnd_azure extension, developed by Microsoft, and is available on PECL. See the configuring redirection article for more information on how to use redirection in your applications.
Important
Support for redirection in the PHP mysqlnd_azure extension is currently in preview.
Frequently asked questions
What you need to know about this planned maintenance?
This is a DNS change only, which makes it transparent to clients. While the IP address for FQDN is changed in the DNS server, the local DNS cache will be refreshed within 5 minutes, and it's automatically done by the operating systems. After the local DNS refresh, all the new connections will connect to the new IP address, all existing connections will remain connected to the old IP address with no interruption until the old IP addresses are fully decommissioned. The old IP address will roughly take three to four weeks before getting decommissioned; therefore, it should have no effect on the client applications.
What are we decommissioning?
Only Gateway nodes will be decommissioned. When users connect to their servers, the first stop of the connection is to gateway node, before connection is forwarded to server. We're decommissioning old gateway rings (not tenant rings where the server is running) refer to the connectivity architecture for more clarification.
How can you validate if your connections are going to old gateway nodes or new gateway nodes?
Ping your server's FQDN, for example ping xxx.mariadb.database.azure.com. If the returned IP address is one of the IPs listed under Gateway IP addresses (decommissioning) in the document above, it means your connection is going through the old gateway. Contrarily, if the returned Ip address is one of the IPs listed under Gateway IP addresses, it means your connection is going through the new gateway.
You may also test by PSPing or TCPPing the database server from your client application with port 3306 and ensure that return IP address isn't one of the decommissioning IP addresses
How do I know when the maintenance is over and will I get another notification when old IP addresses are decommissioned?
You'll receive an email to inform you when we'll start the maintenance work. The maintenance can take up to one month depending on the number of servers we need to migrate in al regions. Prepare your client to connect to the database server using the FQDN or using the new IP address from the table above.
What do I do if my client applications are still connecting to old gateway server?
This indicates that your applications connect to server using static IP address instead of FQDN. Review connection strings and connection pooling setting, AKS setting, or even in the source code.
Is there any impact for my application connections?
This maintenance is just a DNS change, so it's transparent to the client. Once the DNS cache is refreshed in the client (automatically done by operation system), all the new connection will connect to the new IP address and all the existing connection will still working fine until the old IP address fully get decommissioned, which several weeks later. And the retry logic isn't required for this case, but it's good to see the application have retry logic configured. Either use FQDN to connect to the database server or enable list the new 'Gateway IP addresses' in your application connection string. This maintenance operation won't drop the existing connections. It only makes the new connection requests go to new gateway ring.
Can I request for a specific time window for the maintenance?
As the migration should be transparent and no impact to customer's connectivity, we expect there will be no issue for Most users. Review your application proactively and ensure that you either use FQDN to connect to the database server or enable list the new 'Gateway IP addresses' in your application connection string.
I'm using private link, will my connections get affected?
No, this is a gateway hardware decommission and have no relation to private link or private IP addresses, it will only affect public IP addresses mentioned under the decommissioning IP addresses.
Next steps
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