Azure Front Door (AFD) is the ultimate solution for businesses with multiple locations and a global customer base. It offers speedy and secure access to internet-facing apps, serving end-users worldwide. With Microsoft’s global edge network, consisting of numerous points of presence (PoPs) distributed across the globe, your content is guaranteed to reach enterprise and consumer end-users in their vicinity. AFD is the perfect choice to expand your business globally with confidence.
Azure Front Door is offered in two versions: Standard and Premium. These new editions combine the features of Azure Front Door (classic) and Azure CDN from Microsoft (classic) and are paired with Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF). As a result, Azure Front Door is now a modern cloud CDN platform with advanced threat protection and a straightforward pricing structure. It is built on Microsoft’s expansive private global network.
Microsoft’s Azure Front Door is a contemporary cloud-based Content Delivery Network (CDN) that facilitates swift, dependable, and secure connectivity worldwide between users and applications’ web content – static or dynamic.
Microsoft has decided to rename Azure Front Door and Azure CDN from Microsoft as Azure Front Door (classic) and Azure CDN from Microsoft (classic), respectively. These services will still be fully supported and operational. Still, users are recommended to switch to Azure Front Door Standard and Premium for the latest features and upgrades that will not be available on Azure Front Door (classic).
New features/capabilities on the new Front Door:
- Upgrade from Standard to Premium tier without downtime: This feature is also available while transitioning from the classic Azure Front Door to the new Front Door tier.
- Terraform support: With Terraform, it is possible to automate the provisioning of Azure Front Door Standard and Premium.
- Integration with App Service: It is now possible to deploy AFD directly from the App Service resource with just a few clicks. Previously, the deployment workflow only allowed Azure Front Door (classic) and Azure CDN.
- Managed identities integration: Azure Front Door has introduced support for Managed Identities created by Azure Active Directory. This enables Front Door to securely and effortlessly access other Azure AD-protected resources like Azure Key Vault. This feature adds to the already supported AAD Application access to Key Vault.
- Pre-validated domain integration with Static Web Apps: Customers of Static Web App who have validated custom domains at the SWA level can now bypass domain validation on Azure Front Door.
- Azure Advisor: This integration offers advice on the most effective practices and configurations. It includes identifying expired certificates, and certificates that are about to expire, detecting issues with the managed certificates’ automatic rotation, tracking domains awaiting validation for over 24 hours, and recommending the use of the latest version of “secret.”
- Azure Private Link: AAzure Front Door Premium is now available in all Azure regions, with availability zones that allow your application to extend to the edge. You can enjoy private access from Azure Front Door to your backends in Azure.
- WAF enhancements: Azure protection services provide a strong defense against attacks and bots, with the added benefit of being customizable to fit the needs of your specific application. Our Azure Front Door Premium package includes Azure Web Application Firewall at no extra charge and has advanced features.
- Simplified cost model: This feature simplifies billing by requiring customers to plan for fewer meters. It also includes integrated egress pricing, eliminating the separate egress charge when transferring data outbound from Azure regions to Azure Front Door.
- Enhanced analytics capabilities: With AFD, you can improve your monitoring, troubleshooting, and debugging efforts through enhanced capabilities like access logs, health probe logs, additional metrics, and pre-built traffic and security reports.
To fully take advantage of the latest AFD updates, utilizing the upgraded version of AFD with either Standard or Premium SKUs is crucial. I trust you found the information regarding the latest Azure Front Door improvements informative and engaging.
Santhosh has over 15 years of experience in the IT organization. Working as a Cloud Infrastructure Architect and has a wide range of expertise in Microsoft technologies, with a specialization in public & private cloud services for enterprise customers. My varied background includes work in cloud computing, virtualization, storage, networks, automation and DevOps.
