New releases for Microsoft Azure: Private Link, Entra ID, and BYOC

Enterprises want to use their existing cloud infrastructure when building applications, without additional setup. To make Dragonfly easier to use for this, we’re releasing several updates for Microsoft Azure customers.

We strive to make Dragonfly the best real-time data store for high-throughput, large-memory applications. One way we do that is to make Dragonfly simple to use, and simple to migrate from Redis or Valkey. Many of these large workloads require compliance with custom security or data sovereignty policies, and we want to support that as well.

For our growing Microsoft Azure customer base, we’re releasing these new capabilities:

Azure Private Link

With Azure Private Link, your applications reach a Dragonfly Cloud data store through a Private Endpoint in your own Azure subscription. You don’t need a peering connection between your Azure virtual network and Dragonfly Cloud’s private network, and traffic stays on Microsoft’s network without crossing the public internet.

Dragonfly Cloud points the data store's DNS name at your Private Endpoint, so applications keep using the same hostname. They must use the Private Link port, not the default data store port. You can see a full walkthrough and how to get started in the Private Link docs.

Private Link doesn’t yet support data stores that run across multiple shards. Masters plus replicas are supported, but multi-shard clusters with Dragonfly Swarm are not yet supported. If that’s what you need, you can use VNet peering: you and Dragonfly Cloud each grant permission, and Azure joins your private network to the one that holds your data store, so your applications reach every node over private addresses on Microsoft’s network instead of the public internet.

Microsoft Entra ID Integration

Dragonfly Cloud now offers password-free authentication for data stores on Azure by integrating with Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft's cloud identity service. Connect your applications and users to a data store with Microsoft Entra ID, with no passkey required. This is separate from Entra ID single sign-on for the Dragonfly Cloud console, which is already available.

Previously, every application connected with the data store's passkey, so you copied that one shared secret into the configuration of each application that needed access. A data store that uses Entra ID has no passkey. Each user or VM managed identity requests an access token from Entra ID and sends it as the password over TLS, and an ACL rule keyed to that identity's Entra object ID sets the keys and commands it can use.

To learn more and set it up, check out our Entra ID integration docs.

Microsoft Marketplace

Dragonfly Cloud is now on Microsoft Marketplace, Microsoft’s online store for software that runs on Azure. For teams already on Azure, buying through the Marketplace removes one of the slowest parts of adopting a new data store, which can be getting a new vendor through procurement.

If your company has agreed to spend a set amount on Azure over a fixed period with a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment, you can put that budget toward Dragonfly Cloud. Microsoft counts the purchase amount of eligible Marketplace purchases toward your commitment. To use your budget this way, buy through the Marketplace inside the Azure portal.

Buying through the marketplace also simplifies your billing. You get one monthly invoice from Microsoft, with Dragonfly Cloud listed next to the rest of your Azure spend, so your finance team has no new vendor to set up or pay. Dragonfly Cloud is sold under Microsoft’s standard Marketplace contract, which your legal team only needs to review and approve once. For larger deployments, we can set up a private offer with negotiated pricing, and you still buy and pay through Microsoft.

To get started, follow the Azure Marketplace setup steps to subscribe to Dragonfly Cloud and link it to your account.

BYOC on Azure, in private beta

We now offer Bring your own cloud (BYOC) on Azure for when your team needs your data to stay inside your own cloud account. Data residency rules, compliance requirements, or network policies that rule out linking to another company’s network can all make this mandatory. Our BYOC setup runs Dragonfly’s servers and backups inside your own Azure account, while Dragonfly still provisions, updates, and operates them, so you keep ownership of the infrastructure without running the service yourself. Because the servers run in your account, their cost goes on your own cloud bill, where your existing discounts and spend commitments apply.

BYOC on Azure is in private beta. Talk to our team to join. If you want to run BYOC on AWS or Google Cloud, learn more here.

Get started today

Microsoft is retiring the Enterprise and Enterprise Flash tiers of Azure Cache for Redis on March 31, 2027, so if you’re planning that migration, consider Dragonfly Cloud as your destination. To start using Dragonfly Cloud on Azure, sign up for free, with no credit card required. When you create your first data store, choose Microsoft Azure as the cloud provider, then pick your region.

Are you looking at migrating from Azure Cache for Redis, or interested in the BYOC beta? Talk to our team and we can help estimate your savings and plan your migration.