What is Azure Frontdoor?
Front Door is the cloud-based Content Delivery Network (CDN) service Microsoft provides on its cloud platform Azure. It offers several key benefits:
Key Features:
High Availability: Ensures your applications and content are always accessible to users.
Low Latency: Delivers content with minimal delay using Microsoft's global edge network.
Scalability: Easily scales to handle high traffic and large volumes of data.
Security: Integrates with Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, and bot protection to secure your applications.
Global Reach: Uses hundreds of global and local points of presence (PoPs) to deliver content closer to users.
Use Cases:
Content Delivery: Distributes static and dynamic web content efficiently.
API Management: Provides secure and fast access to your APIs.
Global Applications: Supports building and deploying global applications with improved performance.
How to Configure Azure Frontdoor?
Configuring and using Azure Front Door involves several steps to set up your content delivery network (CDN) and optimise content delivery.
Frontdoor Configuration Steps:
Create a Front Door Profile:
- Go to the Azure portal and create a new Front Door profile.
- Choose between the Standard or Premium tier based on your needs.
Add Endpoints and Backends:
- Add endpoints to define the entry points for your users
- Add backends to specify the origin servers where your content is hosted.
Configure Routing Rules:
- Set up routing rules to determine how traffic is distributed to your backends
- You can use various routing methods like URL-based, path-based, and host-based.
Set Up Security Features:
- Integrate Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) for protection against common web vulnerabilities.
- Enable DDoS protection to safeguard against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Test and Deploy:
- Test the configuration to ensure everything is set up correctly.
- Deploy the Front Door profile and use the frontend hostname to access your content.
Usage:
Once configured, Azure Front Door will:
- Distribute Traffic: Direct user requests to the closest backend server to minimise latency.
- Load Balance: Distribute traffic evenly across multiple backend servers to ensure high availability.
- Accelerate Content Delivery: Use caching and other optimisation techniques to speed up content delivery.
- Enhance Security: Protect your applications with integrated security features.
