Azure Front Door

In this article, we’ll dive into Azure Front Door. We’ll learn what Azure Front Door is, its various benefits, and then go into step-by-step procedure to create Front Door Profile in Azure.

Azure Front Door

For content and file delivery as well as building of APIs and application, Azure Front Door enables the provision of secure, low latency, and highly scalable and available delivery to the users. The Azure Front Door can be understood as the Content Delivery Network (CDN) of Microsoft which enables access between applications and users for the static along with dynamic web content in high speed, secure and reliable way. The global edge network which consists of the local and global POPs that are spread across the globe are used by Microsoft to deliver content and chosen as per the nearest POPs for the consumers as well as the enterprise.

  
Source: Microsoft

The Azure Front Door is used for various purposes. When we are building modern internet first architectures which require high end digital experience and are dynamic in nature for automation, security, and reliability, Azure Front Door is the answer. The Azure Front Door is fit for delivering content to apps when we are building applications that needs to adapt rapidly to the ever changing demands and needs of the market. When there is competition going on with other applications, Azure Front Door will help us get an edge. Furthermore, Azure Front Door embraces the Zero Trust Framework which helps us secure our digital estate intelligently against possible unknown and known threats.

Benefits 

Global Presence

Microsoft’s CDN and WDN are present in over 118 edge locations expanded over 100 cities across the globe. This enables enterprise grade WAN to improve latency to other options available in the market by around 3 times. Also, the anycast network of Azure Front Door and split TCP help accelerate the performance of applications.

Support for Modern Architecture

The applications we developed can be modernized with the Native Cloud experience. The Command like tools is extremely DevOps friendly making integration really swift. Languages such as ARM templates, CLI, PowerShell, and Bicep are all supported across SDKs. Domain validation is flexible with custom domain support. Besides, intelligent health probe monitoring makes load balancing and traffic routing highly efficient. In addition, built-in reports are supported and can be viewed from the Dashboard for security patterns and Front Door.

Economical

The Azure Front Door is highly cost effective. Single tier offering is provided for unified static and dynamic delivery. This enables ease of scaling application using SSL offload, caching, and three-to-four-layer DDOS protection. Furthermore, the entry fee is minimal and the cost model is highly simplified to reduce the complexity of billing with few meters. Also, the egress charges are separated based upon the Azure regions for the Azure Front Door.

High Security

Applications can be secured using the built-in three-to-four-layer DDoS protection, Azure DNS, and the WAF. Malicious threats can be detected with Bot manager with the highly sophisticated Microsoft Threat Intelligence. Besides, using Azure Front Door the backend can be connected privately with a zero-trust model. Also, the Azure Advisor and Azure Policy help provide consistent centralized security.

We’ve discussed about the Azure Front Door and its benefits. Now, let us learn how to setup the Front Door Profile in Azure.

Create Front Door Profile in Azure

Step 1

First of all, login into the Azure portal. The welcome page will look similar to as below.

Step 2

Click on Create a resource.

Step 3

Now, in the search bar, Search for front door.

  

You’ll see the option Front Door and CDB Profiles. Click it.

Step 4

Now under the Front Door and CDB Profiles plan, Click on Create.

Step 5

Here, select the Quick Create with Azure Front Door.

Next, Click on Continue to create a Front Door.

Step 6

We are now provided with the form to fill the detail for our profile and project.

First of all, create a resource group, ojash-rg.

Next, select your Resource Group Location. I’ve selected East US.

Name your profile as I’ve done as ojashAzureFrontDoor.

Under the Tier, Select Premium which helps up obtain an optimized security profile.

Under the Endpoint settings, name your endpoint. Select Custom under the Origin Type and the host name.

Now, create a WAF Policy.

Once all is one, Click on Review + Create.

Step 7

Now, the validation is done. Once it's passed, Click on Create.

The initialization process starts and we are notified about the deployment.

Step 8

We can see the progress and later as the deployment is complete, we are provided with the Go to resource.

Step 9

Now, we can finally see, our Azure Front Door Profile, ojashAzureFrontDoor has been created.

Deletion

Step 10

Later, when we are done using this front door, we can delete it from the Delete Button and we’ll be notified of the process.

 
Conclusion

Thus, in this article, we’ve learned about Azure Front Door. Next, we went ahead to explore the various benefits of Azure Front Door such as about its global presence, security, scalability, its economical nature and the support for modern architecture of applications. Lastly, we went through a step-by-step tutorial to create an Azure Front Door Profile.