Microsoft introduces Azure Firewall Basic

Microsoft has officially launched Azure Firewall Basic, a new SKU, designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses. Since its public preview, it has been met with widespread adoption, with users citing its ease of use and simple setup as top benefits.

Microsoft suggests that customers who intend to use traditional hub-and-spoke network topology with a Firewall on the hub should deploy Azure Firewall in a virtual network. Conversely, customers with large or global network deployments in Azure that require global transit connectivity across Azure regions and premises should opt to deploy Azure Firewall on a virtual hub.

Furthermore, Azure Firewall Basic is super easy to set up, giving you Layer 3–Layer 7 filtering and malicious traffic alerts. It has built-in threat intelligence from Microsoft, so you can trust that you’re safe from any digital shenanigans. Deployment isn’t a problem either – with a few clicks, you’ll be good to go. It’s a cloud-native service that integrates smoothly with other Azure services like Firewall Manager, Azure Monitor, Events Hub, Microsoft Sentinel, and Microsoft Defender for extra protection.

Azure Firewall Basic allows teams to utilize Infrastructure as Code (IaC) by providing native support for configuration via declarative ARM templates. Additionally, popular third-party platforms like Terraform also support IaC for automated deployment. Security across an entire organization can be consistently maintained thanks to Azure Firewall Manager, which provides centralized control over multiple instances and policies.

Furthermore, it is continuously updated with the latest threat intelligence and security updates to make sure it is always secure from potential threats.

Azure Firewall offers three SKUs designed to fit a wide range of customer needs, each optimized for their use cases. For customers requiring the security of highly sensitive applications, such as payment processing, Azure Firewall Premium is recommended. This SKU provides all features of the Azure Firewall Standard, plus the added benefit of advanced threat protection capabilities, such as malware and TLS inspection.

For corporate clients needing to manage peak traffic levels up to 30 Gbps, Azure Firewall Standard is the recommended SKU with enterprise features such as threat intelligence, DNS proxy, custom DNS and web categories. Lastly, Basic is geared towards small business customers who don’t need high throughput speeds of more than 250 Mbps