Microsoft announces new Azure Front Door, its modern enterprise CDN

Back in 2019, Microsoft announced Azure Front Door, its content delivery network (CDN) for enterprises who want to deliver and manage content for their respective customers. However, this CDN could not cater to the demands of the hybrid working models that have emerged in the past couple of years so Microsoft has today announced the general availability of "new Azure Front Door", which we will now refer to as "new AFD" throughout the article for brevity.

Microsoft says that new AFD focuses on accelerated deliveries of dynamic and static content with turnkey security and a simplified pricing model. The CDN is tailor-made for higher availability, low latency, scalability, and enhanced security for hybrid environments.

In terms of simplified pricing, new AFD offers two tiers, namely Azure Front Door Standard and Azure Front Door Premium. You can find all the details on pricing here to see which tier suits your needs the most.

Microsoft has focused on three key areas where new AFD will benefit organizations. The first is a modern architecture with an enhanced rules engine, automation and simplified provisioning, and analytics. Secondly, we have fast global delivery with an emphasis on a "truly global" network, unified delivery of static and dynamic content, and the simplified cost model mentioned previously. Finally, there is intelligent security with Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) enhancements, improved DDoS protection, and support for Azure Private Link.

The existing Azure Front Door will now be called "Azure Front Door (classic)" while the new experience will be called "Azure Front Door". Of course, this is not at all confusing. Similarly, "Azure CDN from Microsoft" will also be renamed to "Azure CDN from Microsoft (classic)". Microsoft has noted that it will launch zero downtime migrations from its legacy CDNs to the new one within the next few months.