Azure Firewall Reviews

When we started using Azure Firewall, we learned quickly that it couldn't do much. As I remember, it was essentially a layer 3 or layer 4 firewall that couldn't distinguish recognized applications and things like that. But it was inexpensive compared to the Palo Alto stuff we were looking at, so we wound up staying with the firewall. Mainly it was just inspecting ports between virtual machines.

Azure Firewall definitely needs a broader feature base. It should be able to go all the way up to layer 7 when looking at applications and things like that. It needs to be comparable to what you would get from Cisco, Palo Alto, Checkpoint, or any of those guys. If it's going to be a firewall, it needs to be competitive. From a security standpoint, it's not any better than loading an IP table in a Linux box. In fact, Linux may even be better in that sense

I've been using Azure Firewall for probably about a year.

Azure Firewall wasn't scalable at all, but it did what it's supposed to do.

I honestly don't remember interfacing a lot with Azure support. I think that we were dealing with a third party, maybe. But I've been dealing with AWS for the last year, and it's a totally different experience in a good way. Their support is outstanding.

Setting up Azure Firewall was easy because all you were doing was configuring source, destination, port, and action. However, there was something weird. You have to number your rules set, and depending on your numbering system, that's how you would have to apply the filtering of the logic of the policy. And in that sense, it's a little bit quirky. I don't think that most firewalls work that way. It just reads the policy, and the algorithm is based on it filtering down through the policies until it hits a truth or a match. And then it makes a decision based on that.

Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage. 

Each company will prioritize what it wants to work on. Azure may outperform AWS in some areas, but after working with the two platforms for roughly the same amount of time, I've found AWS friendlier and more sophisticated overall. AWS just seems to be a better platform for me, honestly.

I would rate Azure Firewall one out of 10. I give it the worst rating because security is so important. However, it depends on your security goals. But you have to look at what's out there and what you typically get out of a box. Even for a cheap application for your computer, Azure Firewall just isn't delivering. It doesn't have any personality at all or functionality even. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I would have to go back and visit it because it's been a year now. The features are so limited that it's pretty much a protocol-filtering product. 

Honestly, I think any serious security-minded entity will bypass Azure Firewall and look at some of the images from the third parties. I guess it's suitable for small outfits that aren't serious about security but want some basic protection. By the time I walked away, I  had spent a lot of hours on it, and I spent more time in my job trying to find a solution and pick the right one. I did everything to learn the firewall's feature set. I finally talked with someone at Microsoft who said, "We know what you want and what you're trying to do, but we're just not there yet."

They just told me to stay tuned. I got the impression Azure Firewall is a very immature product that would probably improve over time. But, at that moment, I didn't think it was unready. It's just that products are trying to achieve different things. You can't have all the horses in all places. It's one of those things where I felt like it would have to be some acquisition or complete outsourcing of the security component to somebody specialized in the area who can sell it as a firewall.

We are a technical services company and we are in the data center space. We provide different solutions, including firewalls such as Azure Firewall, to our clients depending on their needs.

We have a large customer base that is global in scope and we provide hosting services as well as managed services. We have solutions deployed in both public cloud and private cloud environments. 

We typically use this solution in the perimeter layer, although we do have some use cases where we handle East-west traffic.

The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs.

Security is playing a vital role these days, and the layer seven features such as IPS and malware protection are helpful in that regard.

The interface is fair and has not given us any challenges.

This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing. It is lacking in some of the security features. Palo Alto and Fortinet are better for this.

In the next release, I would like to see the inclusion of more next-generation firewall features.

So far, we have not seen any problems with stability.

We are currently exploring the scalability and availability. It has a number of extensions available to increase the bandwidth, throughput, scale-up, and scale-out points.

We have not been in contact with technical support.

We have experience with Palo Alto, Check Point, FortiGate, and Cisco firewalls. Azure Firewall is more scalable than these other solutions.

There are no big challenges when it comes to implementing this solution.

It takes approximately two hours to deploy.

We have a lot of resources in this space, so we take care of the implementation and deployment on our own.

This is a solution that I recommend for internet-facing network traffic.

When it comes to rating this solution, there are two components here. For layer four traffic, I would rate it an eight out of ten. For layer seven traffic, however, I would rate it less.

Overall, I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I have deployed Azure Firewall for a couple of my clients. They primarily use it for protecting their workloads and limiting incoming connections.

I also have a subscription but I use it primarily for testing.

The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats. It can easily detect threats and I have customers that have experienced this.

The malware signatures are updated automatically, which is helpful for new customers.

Compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto, Azure Firewall is not very flexible. There are multiple options for VPNs and the other features, and most of my clients are implementing third-party products that they are getting from the marketplace and other vendors.

The reporting, logging, and monitoring features, as well as the flexibility of the policies, need to be improved.

The visibility is much less with Azure Firewall than it is with other products.

I have been working with Azure Firewall for two years.

This is a firewall that I implement for my SMB customers. For example, one of my recent deployments was to a user base of between 300 and 500 people. In fact, it was their DR site, so there was no regular user traffic. The real-time users enter that site typically for maintenance.

 My enterprise clients normally choose to implement SonicWall NSV.

I have not had the opportunity to fully test the scalability but I can't see any limitations to it at this time.

I have opened a couple of cases with Azure and the technical support was fine. There were no issues with it.

I have experience with several other firewalls including FortiGate and Palo Alto.

Another product that I have sold to my enterprise customers is SonicWall NSV.

Compared to other firewall products, the setup is complex. I have faced problems setting up the DNAT, and there are some issues with setting up the certificates. I have also had trouble with service tag issues.

The basic deployment takes one day or two days at the maximum. The fine-tuning, where we have to monitor and identify the proper traffic, takes place over two or three weeks. Fine-tuning is an extensive part of it. It is important that the configuration is set up correctly.

We deploy this solution for our customers but they are responsible for the fine-tuning to their environment. I deploy it for our clients but I have another colleague who does it, as well.

Overall, this is a good product and we will continue working with it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We implemented Azure Firewall to secure edges and gain access control to the internet for BNS and Bitcoin. It's used to access the internet in a safe way. It allows us to access services from Azure via the firewall within Azure.

With this technology, we were able to handle different projects in a smaller amount of time. The time-to-market has been much better since we implemented this solution. We have more agility, take less time to implement, and are able to set up faster.

The firewall policy control, URL content control, and antivirus are all the most valuable aspects. Threat prevention is as well quite good. 

The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them.

I've been using the solution for five years.

It is very stable. I don't remember having a fall or failure in this service. 

It is a good solution in terms of scaling. If we need to support more traffic or more bandwidth, the solution grows automatically. It's configured to grow.

My company has an enterprise contract with Azure, and that contract gives us the right to access very specific, very high-level support. We always have good support and a high level of support with Azure from those that specialize in different areas of Azure.

Sometimes the support is delayed as sometimes we have to connect with support abroad. Sometimes we are limited as our people do not always know English and there can be a language barrier.

Positive

We did not use a different solution. This is the first solution we've used and we'll keep the same solution for now.

I do not have direct experience with technical support. My colleagues in operations were involved in the setup. My role was to define and decide what kind of service we needed.

The deployment was in different regions, including in the USA and Virginia. It was a combination of on-premises and hybrid cloud between the two regions. 

I don't recall the solution needing maintenance.

My colleague and partner implemented the product. 

I have not seen an ROI.

The solution is cheaper than other brands. My company has an enterprise contract and we finally got a good price with Azure.

We evaluated Check Point and Fortinet.

It's simpler to implement Azure. It's simpler in terms of handling the license. With the other providers, in order to get support, it is necessary to sign a contract. With Azure, it's different. It's more agile and simpler to get service. The support is embedded in the service.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The solution is very simple to implement. In terms of the security policy, it's good. Previously, we had to define how the solution was used and we had to configure it. It's necessary to define and have a good plan as the solution is very fast to implement. The velocity has to be contained via having a good plan. You need to be very clear and very detailed. Be prepared and plan everything in advance. 

We used Azure Firewall to secure our cloud layer and integrate our on-prem servers. We also used it to build the QDM level for integration. Azure Firewall offers multiple SKUs, including Standard and Premium. I have experience with the Standard SKU, but not the Premium one.

Overall, I had a good experience with Azure Firewall, but there are some downsides. 

FQDN integration, especially the ability to integrate with Azure Active Directory domain services.

Azure Firewall can integrate with Azure services to access application data. I've also integrated it with Azure Monitor.  

From an integration perspective, it's very helpful. We can monitor both network and cloud traffic, which is a definite plus.

There are some downsides. One is the lack of built-in VPN capability. You need a separate Azure VPN Gateway for that functionality. Many customers compare Azure Firewall to their existing on-premises firewalls, which often have VPN capabilities. 

Additionally, Azure Firewall has some limitations in terms of threat signature coverage. There is a separate service for threat signature tuning, but it's worth noting this potential downside.

I would appreciate it if Azure Firewall included built-in VPN capabilities. It would be beneficial if Azure Firewall could replicate features that are available in other firewalls.

I used it for one and a half years.  

I do have some experience with other Azure services, though I wouldn't consider myself an expert.

I haven't experienced any stability issues or downtimes.

I work with both SMBs and enterprises.

I haven't needed to contact Microsoft so far.

I work with clients from multiple sectors, including private and government. We gather their requirements and provide solutions tailored to their needs.

Sometimes, we have to choose between Azure Firewall and third-party firewall options on Azure.

I haven't worked with other cloud firewalls extensively, but Azure Firewall compares favorably in terms of features. People can compare it to platforms like AWS or GCP to see the feature differences.

It's straightforward. If you have experience with Azure, it's not complex at all.

The deployment time depends on the requirements. We can deploy the firewall itself in about half an hour to 20 minutes. The configuration time will vary based on the customer's specific needs. The provisioning process is quick because it integrates with multiple roles.

The configuration process is straightforward. There is nothing complex. 

It is affordable.

I would rate it an eight out of ten, where one is the worst and ten is the best.

We use it to do the network traffic filtering between our private network and a public network. So, it is a boundary. Because of our IDS and IPS needs, the advanced features are enabled in Azure Firewall.

There are two types of versions. In China, there is only the standard tier, but in the rest of the regions, there is the premium tier.

We have a centralized filtering capability because of Azure Firewall. So, our application teams don't need to take too much care of network filtering and network protection. It has helped a lot in reducing the management overhead for our application teams.

It has helped us a lot with compliance. Because of our local cybersecurity law needs, we need to have firewall filtering capability. Before Azure Firewall, we didn't have too many choices. For example, we only had ACL, but Azure Firewall is a real firewall. It can protect us from a lot of traffic. So, it is improving our security and bringing satisfaction to the security team.

From the viewpoint of our internal organization, it simplifies the work for our application teams. Because the Infra team has built a centralized shared firewall service, our application teams can have this kind of managed service from the Infra team. That's one of the benefits. It doesn't directly impact our customers or end-users outside our organizations, but it protects their personal data and information. It also improves their security level. So, overall, the end-users are getting served better.

Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity.

It is a cloud service, but the lending speed for each region is not always the same. For example, in China, the speed is slow. They need to think about how to make sure that the service pace or speed is always the same in all regions. It would be a great improvement if they can provide the same pace worldwide. 

It is still not at par with traditional next-generation firewalls. It is still behind other network and firewall vendors such as Palo Alto. There are other advanced and leading products in the market, and Azure Firewall is still a follower. So, they can consider investing more in this product and make it a market leader like Azure.

I have been using it for more or less two years.

We had a few critical incidents, and we did the investigation together with Microsoft. It seems there were some bugs in Azure Firewall shared cluster. So, at the very beginning, we had a few outages or critical incidents because of the product bugs, but since then, especially in the past few months, it seems very good.

Scalability is a reason why we choose a cloud service like Azure Firewall. It can scale depending on the increase in your real traffic. In our case, we never reached the 20-gigabyte throughput limit, but we can have more instances in case the application or the network traffic grows. So, it can be scaled, and we don't need to take too much care of Azure capacity planning. 

The Infra team is a direct user of this firewall. They take care of its day-to-day management. There are, at the most, 10 people on this team. They build the pipeline, monitor its performance, and based on the service requests, add and modify the JSON templates. In terms of applications, there are maybe hundreds of applications that rely on the service from Azure Firewall. We are implementing Azure Firewall worldwide. So, our footprint is extending.

I would rate them a seven out of 10.

We didn't have any cloud solution previously. We deployed it from scratch.

Its initial setup was pretty straightforward. With its native portal and User Guide, you can very quickly do the implementation. Its UI is very user-friendly. 

We made it an enterprise shared service for our use case. We studied and designed the cloud-native Azure Firewall service from scratch and packaged it as a standard service in our environment. We wanted to maintain the Azure service like the DNAT network rule and application rule. We wanted it to be always manageable in its lifecycle. So, we chose the infrastructure mode to manage our service. We have a delivery pipeline, and we also use the DevOps mode to maintain the Azure Firewall configuration in its lifecycle. For this part, the API is good, and the native Terraform and Ansible have relevant predefined modules. It is working fine. So, for this part, it is very good. It doesn't matter whether you are a junior technical guy or an advanced technical guy. You can always find a comfortable way to deploy, manage, and maintain it.

Its deployment is very quick. It takes a few minutes. In order to make it the deployer pipeline, you need to spend some time because you need to think about the integration, such as how to integrate with GitLab CI, and how to make Azure Workbook so that it can monitor the usage and user performance. We wanted it as a managed service. So, the duration also depends on your use case.

We did it ourselves. For its deployment and maintenance, we have less than five people. They just monitor and respond to all instances. They also accept a service request to implement a new rule or modify the older version of a rule. We don't have to do any upgrades.

We pay based on the usage. So, it makes sense that at the very beginning, we know very well how are they charging. We use and pay for it. So, it is not a CapEx expense. It is an OPEX expense, so it is not the same logic as ROI.

It is pay-as-you-go. So, you pay based on the usage. If I remember it well, there is a basic fee, and there is a traffic fee. It is not per month. It is per hour or something like that. It is not so expensive.

We evaluated Palo Alto. If you want to have a Palo Alto firewall in the cloud, you need to deploy it as a virtual appliance. This part is not that easy because it requires two types of tech stack. You need an Azure computing license for the Palo Alto virtual appliance. In addition, scalability is your responsibility. It is not the responsibility of your core service provider. So, for maintenance, you need to spend more time and effort.

Azure provides a unified API or interface, whereas if you want to have a traditional firewall appliance implemented in the cloud, you need to take care of the API or interface so that it can be managed in an automated way.

You should have a clear understanding of Azure Firewall. You should understand how Microsoft packages it as a service. If you don't understand how is it composed and how it works, it will bring some unexpected issues during your day-to-day operation. This is a major service from Microsoft, so the quality of Microsoft's product will directly impact the service you want to offer to your customer or users. If you understand it well and test it well, it will give you fewer surprises in the future.

I would rate Azure Firewall a seven out of 10.

There are a lot of competitors to Azure Firewall. Microsoft figured it out, that they needed a firewall for their Azure platform that can integrate with their services. That's why they came up with Azure Firewall. It really has a pretty nice integration with Azure services. 

In terms of the reporting, it's beautiful. It integrates with Azure monitoring and with Azure policies. That piece is a big help. You can set governing policies and you can use the application firewall, as well as the Azure Firewall, to enforce those policies. If you use the Azure platform, it is the best choice. And they're working on integrating it with many more Azure resources.

The configuration is much easier because Microsoft already provides you with a tool that belongs to Azure. You can set one rule instead of setting 100 rules. That makes the administration of Azure Firewall much easier. For example, when it comes to DNS tags, services tags, and URL tags, you don't have to go URL-by-URL and tell it to open this or that port.

In addition, it's a SaaS service. You don't have to worry about managing a virtual machine and things like patching and upgrading.

It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that.

I am an experienced Azure architect. I have more than 30 years in this field. I don't do operations anymore, although I know how to configure things.

I have just done the design on a project for General Electric, with Azure Firewall.

It's very stable. Microsoft will not put something out there that is unstable.

Another big benefit of Azure Firewall is the scalability. You can grow it to meet the load of traffic. With a virtual appliance-based solution from Palo Alto or Cisco, you need to add another one to scale.

Their tech support is great. They are very helpful. They can be involved in the design.

The initial setup is a piece of cake. You just provision it. You need to know your requirements because there are two versions, Standard and Premium, which affect your costs.

One of the benefits of Azure Firewall, while it is not mature yet, is that the total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand.

When people look at the cost of Azure Firewall, they think, "Oh, it's pretty expensive." But when you base it on the total cost of ownership over a period of time, you have to look at the scalability and the fact that, if you already have Microsoft support, it is included for Azure Firewall automatically. When you add in the integration and the management, it comes out to much less than virtual appliances.

I would highly recommend it if your design needs Azure Firewall. It might not need it. It might be that you could use an application firewall and that the application gateway will be more than enough.

They're working on a distributed solution so that it's not that you just have a virtual network and one firewall. They really want to have more than one entry point into your environment, with ways to orchestrate it, with the IP coming from a client to different firewalls. They are moving at the speed of light to realize a lot of strategic initiatives for Azure Firewall. It is one of the strategic items that Microsoft is working on.

Basically, our organization is using the solution to inspect the traffic. I'm using the solution as the main defense system prior to de-traffication on the NGX layer (layer seven). Then, of course, we're forwarding to the Kubernetes cluster.

The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses. 

The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks.

There's already a web application firewall for detection, however, it isn't as useful as it could be. They should work to improve it.

In terms of prevention, I don't think it's any better than just a regular firewall. They need to add more security features to make it more powerful and more secure.

I've been using the solution for six months so far. It hasn't been too long.

The stability of the solution is excellent. It hasn't failed. There are no bugs, glitches, or crashes. It's reliable.

Azure uses an on-premises environment. I wouldn't use it for scalability purposes. In terms of scalability, our organization is much more inclined towards Fortinet's Fortigate virtual appliance rather than the Azure Firewall.

We provide services to our clients and help them maintain the product.

However, we have contacted technical support several times. We've submitted tickets and dealt with technical support directly. Occasionally, it takes a long period of time for them to get back to us. It does depend on the severity of the issues. In terms of feedback and output they've provided us, we have been very satisfied. They can just be a little slow.

We use both Azure Firewall and Fortinet solutions, including Fortigate. I personally find that Azure doesn't offer the same capabilities. Fortinet is better.

I'm not sure of the exact pricing, however, I do believe it is less expensive than Fortigate.

For Fortinet, we pay around $5,000 per year. It offers more, however. It, for example, also improves the intrusion detection system. We bought a Fortinet appliance two years ago and Azure Firewall didn't exist at the time.

We're Azure partners and have an enterprise agreement with the company, however, we may be switching. We also have a dedicated Account Manager with the company.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It's missing a few capabilities our organization would really like to see.