3 min read

Announcing public preview of virtual network support for Power Platform Dataverse plug-ins and Connectors

By Ritesh Pandey

March 21, 2024

Introduction

We are excited to announce that the virtual network support for Dataverse plug-ins and connectors within Power Platform is now available in public preview for all our customers in public cloud! This feature allows you to protect your outbound connections from Power Platform services like Dataverse Plug-ins and connectors to resources within your private network. Virtual network support for Power Platform is based on Azure Subnet Delegation. With Azure Subnet Delegation, you can delegate your subnets to the Power Platform and configure it to run the services within your delegated subnet. This way, you can securely manage your egress traffic from the Power Platform according to your network policy. We plan to continue extending the virtual network capabilities to other connectors.

Power Platform Approach to securing outbound connectivity

Virtual network support for Power Platform is optimized to handle API (Application Programming Interface)-centric workloads, and hence is the recommended approach for outbound connectivity from Power Platform services to resources within your network when using Dataverse plug ins and Power Platform Connectors. For Power BI and Power Platform Dataflows (PPDF), the recommended approach is to use virtual network data gateway, which is optimized to handle ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) workloads.

Overview of the feature

This feature is particularly useful for customers who have security and compliance requirements to secure their data by protecting outbound traffic from Power Platform.

With virtual network support, you will be able to solve following key problems.

You don’t have to expose private end protected resources within your VNet to internet to allow Power Platform services to connect to these protected resources, thereby protecting your data.
You don’t have to allow-list sets of Power Platform IP’s ranges or service tags to allow Power Platform services to connect to resources within your vNet, thereby protecting the resources from unauthorized access.

Currently, you can use secured private outbound connectivity from custom 3rd party Dataverse plug-ins and connectors to enhance the security of data integration with external data sources within your secured private network from your Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dynamics 365 apps.

Unlocking Secure Data Integration with Copilot Studio in Power Platform

In today’s interconnected world, secure data integration is crucial for organizations. Copilot Studio offers robust solutions for fetching and processing data securely. Let’s explore two scenarios where Copilot Studio demonstrates the network security capability of Power Platform:

Scenario #1: Fetching Customer Data from a Web API Hosted in Azure

Imagine you need to retrieve customer data securely from your Web API hosted in Azure. Copilot Studio seamlessly orchestrates the process:

Copilot Studio Initiates a Power Automate Flow: Copilot Studio triggers Power Automate flows through a command that include Dataverse unbound plug-in action.
Dataverse Plug-in Calls a Web API: The Power Automate flow makes a secure call using Dataverse Plug-in to a private endpoint-protected Web API. This ensures that customer data retrieval remains secure.

Scenario #2: Securely Accessing Azure SQL Database

Suppose you want to access enriched customer data stored in an Azure SQL database. Copilot Studio simplifies this process:

Copilot Studio Initiates a Power Automate Flow: Copilot Studio triggers a Power Automate flow through a command.
Power Automate Uses a SQL Connector: The Power Automate flow securely retrieves data from the private endpoint-protected Azure SQL Database using the SQL connector.

In both scenarios, Copilot Studio empowers you to handle data seamlessly while maintaining the highest level of security. Whether it’s APIs or databases, Copilot Studio keeps your organizational data safe and protected.

Copilot securely gets the data from Web API and SQL Database using Dataverse plug-in action and SQL connector

Securely Managing Customer Data with Virtual Tables and Power Apps

In a world where data security is paramount, Virtual Tables and Power Apps provide robust solutions. Let’s explore a scenario where you can securely manage customer data stored in an Azure SQL database:

Scenario: Leveraging Virtual Tables for Secure Connectivity

Suppose you need to securely manage customer data using Power Apps:

Virtual Tables: Power Apps uses virtual table.
Virtual Network-Supported SQL Connector: By leveraging the virtual network-supported SQL connector within Virtual Table, you can securely connect to your Azure SQL database.
Power Apps in Action: Power Apps interacts seamlessly with the virtual tables and Azure SQL Database, allowing you to manage customer data securely.

In summary, with Virtual network support, you can securely manage customer data stored in an SQL database through Power Apps using Virtual Tables.

Power Apps uses virtual table with virtual network supported SQL connector to manage the customer data from SQL database.

Availability and Licensing

Virtual network support for Dataverse plug-ins and Power Platform Connectors is available for public preview in public cloud. We will be announcing licensing requirements near general availability.