Azure Bastion is a fully managed Azure service that allows administrators to securely connect to virtual machines in an Azure Virtual Network using RDP or SSH without exposing those virtual machines directly to the public internet.
Instead of assigning a public IP address to every VM, you can use Azure Bastion as a secure access point for administrative connections.
Why Is Azure Bastion Useful?
A common cloud security practice is to keep production VMs in private subnets and avoid exposing management ports such as RDP 3389 and SSH 22 to the internet.
Azure Bastion helps with this by providing browser-based connectivity through the Azure portal. The administrator can connect to a VM without needing to give the VM its own public IP address.
Some important benefits include:
- No public IP required on the target VM
- Reduced exposure of SSH and RDP ports
- Browser-based RDP and SSH access
- Managed by Azure
- Useful for accessing VMs in private network environments
- Helps simplify secure administrative access
How Does It Work?
A typical setup looks like:
Administrator ā Azure Portal ā Azure Bastion ā Private VM
The VM remains on the private network, while Bastion provides the connection path for administrative access.
For example, suppose a company has several Windows and Linux VMs running inside a virtual network. Instead of assigning public IPs and opening RDP or SSH ports on each VM, the organization can deploy Bastion and use it to connect to those machines.
Azure Bastion vs. Jump Server
Traditionally, organizations might deploy a jump server or bastion host to provide controlled administrative access. However, that approach requires the organization to manage the server, operating system, patches, security configuration, and availability.
Azure Bastion is a managed service, so Azure handles much of the underlying infrastructure management.
Things to Keep in Mind
Azure Bastion is mainly designed for secure administrative access. It is not a replacement for proper identity management, network security, monitoring, or VM hardening.
You should still use strong authentication, least-privilege access, appropriate network rules, and monitoring.
For DevOps and cloud engineers, Azure Bastion is especially useful when designing environments where virtual machines should remain private while administrators still need secure RDP or SSH access.
In simple terms, Azure Bastion provides a managed and secure way to access Azure VMs without putting their management ports directly on the public internet.