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Azure - Front Door

Introduction

  • Azure Front Door is a global, scalable, and secure entry point for fast delivery of your web applications.
  • It offers features such as global load balancing, enhanced performance, and comprehensive security for your web applications.

Azure Front Door

Key Features of Azure Front Door

  1. Global Load Balancing:
    • Distributes incoming traffic across multiple backend regions to improve availability and responsiveness.
  2. Application Acceleration:
    • Uses edge POPs (Points of Presence) to cache content and accelerate dynamic content delivery.
  3. SSL Offload:
    • Provides SSL termination at the edge, offloading the SSL decryption/encryption process from the backend servers.
  4. Web Application Firewall (WAF):
    • Protects web applications from common threats and vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and more.
  5. URL-based Routing:
    • Routes requests based on URL paths to different backend pools, enabling microservices architectures and path-based routing.
  6. Custom Domains and Certificates:
    • Supports custom domains and provides SSL/TLS certificates for securing connections.
  7. DDoS Protection:
    • Integrates with Azure DDoS Protection to mitigate distributed denial-of-service attacks.
  8. Health Probes:
    • Monitors the health of backend services and directs traffic only to healthy endpoints.
  9. Caching:
    • Caches static content at the edge to reduce latency and improve performance.

Use Cases for Azure Front Door

  1. Global Web Applications:
    • Distribute web traffic across multiple regions to provide high availability and low latency for users worldwide.
    • Example: An e-commerce website serving customers globally can use Azure Front Door to ensure quick load times and high availability.
  2. Performance Optimization:
    • Improve performance by caching static content at edge locations close to users.
    • Example: A media streaming service can use Azure Front Door to deliver video content quickly by caching it at edge locations.
  3. Application Security:
    • Protect applications from web vulnerabilities and DDoS attacks using built-in WAF and DDoS protection.
    • Example: A financial services application can use Azure Front Door’s WAF to block malicious traffic and ensure secure transactions.
  4. Microservices Architectures:
    • Route traffic based on URL paths to different backend services or microservices.
    • Example: A SaaS application can use URL-based routing to direct API requests to the appropriate microservice.
  5. SSL Offloading:
    • Offload SSL termination to Azure Front Door to reduce the load on backend servers and simplify SSL certificate management.
    • Example: A healthcare application can use SSL offloading to ensure secure connections while reducing backend processing.
  6. Disaster Recovery and Failover:
    • Automatically reroute traffic to healthy regions or backends in case of failures.
    • Example: An online gaming platform can use Azure Front Door to redirect traffic to a backup region if the primary region goes down.
  7. Custom Domain and Certificate Management:
    • Use custom domains and manage SSL/TLS certificates for secure connections.
    • Example: A blogging platform can use custom domains with SSL certificates to provide a secure and branded experience for its users.
  8. API Gateway:
    • Act as a global API gateway, providing a single entry point for APIs across multiple regions.
    • Example: A company providing a public API can use Azure Front Door to route requests to the nearest regional backend, ensuring low latency and high availability.
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