Azure Firewall Reviews

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.

I used it for two of my clients. One of the clients used it for Azure Virtual Desktop implementation and for blocking the internet for the other applications in the IaaS. The use case for the other clients was also similar. It was put in there for holding up traffic and filtering traffic.

It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy.

It reduced work by 30%. It saved maintenance and operational costs by 15%.

The HTTPS Inspection feature was useful where HTTPS traffic is scanned before it goes over the line.

Its interface is okay, and it is very adjustable. I like IP groups and other things that you can do with it.

Rules management could be better. You have all kinds of rules, and they can put something better in place there.

There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface.

It has been about two years.

Its stability is very good.

It is scalable. It was used across multiple regions. One of them had about 3,000 users, and the other one had about 5,000 users.

Their technical support is good. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

We used a different solution. We had on-prem Palo Alto. 

I was involved in its setup. I deployed it with Bicep pipelines. The maintenance was also via pipelines. Its setup was straightforward, especially with Terraform and Bicep. It was done in 10 minutes to 15 minutes.

It is a one-man job, but that is not our advice. It is better to have three or four people who have knowledge of the firewall system. If you have only one person and that person is sick, then you have a problem. You block the internet, and sometimes, you have to open it. So, it is better to do it with a small team. If there are a lot of changes, two to three people should be fine.

In terms of maintenance, there is only the maintenance of new ports or IP addresses, but that's operational management. That's not firewall management as such.

Our clients have seen about 25% return on investment.

It is expensive, especially with the premium functions.

For one of the clients, it was very expensive. You have to use it more at an enterprise level, and there, it was not at an enterprise level. So, it was very costly, but security-wise, it was a very wise decision to use it that way. 

The solution of Palo Alto and the other one, whose name I don't remember, were IaaS-based, but we wanted a platform as a service, and Azure Firewall is that.

If you have an ecosystem based on, for instance, Palo Alto, it would be better to use a Palo Alto firewall because they have one way of working and one interface, but if you have a greenfield deployment or your on-prem is old or legacy, then I would advise going for Azure Firewall.

Its basic features were enough for us. The single sign-on experience was also okay. We had no problem with that. If required, we can use Privileged Identity Management or MFA. All these features are there within Azure.

I would rate it an eight 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 primarily use the solution as a firewall. 

The initial setup is not complex. It's very simple. 

It is an easy product to maintain.

The solution is stable. 

An Azure firewall is not a real firewall. It has a lot of things to improve on. It should go and make a list of other firewalls and apply what they offer to its services. It requires features such as IDS, IPS, anti-virus, et cetera. The security protections on offer need to be better.

I've used the solution for quite some time. I would say it's been four to five years.

The solution is stable. In terms of stability and reliability, I don't see an issue. there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product isn't scalable per se. They're used in very minimal and milder situations which do not challenge their bandwidth and processing capabilities.

I won't say I'm a hundred percent satisfied, however, since the product is in an evaluation state, there are these teething issues that will be there.

I have used solutions such as Fortinet. 

The implementation process is easy. It is not overly complex or difficult in terms of the setup process.

We are a customer and an end-user.

We look at the solution and assign it according to our client's needs. it's situational. 

Based on the actual firewall capabilities, I would say it's a five out of ten in terms of a rating.

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.

The use cases are related to internet-based traffic restriction. Generally, when it comes to gaining access to web applications hosted on Azure from the outside world, and the traffic restriction between the internal supplements.

We're still looking into the features. I can't evaluate much of it right now because we're still exploring. The requirements that we are looking at on the firewalls have been met, and we have begun running the operations. We are also looking forward to the next level of firewall features.

It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature. It also meets industry-level standards and compliance requirements, which have been verified by our security team.

It supports native load balances, and routable can be easily configured, which is another added feature. When we look at any other firewalls, and they were difficult to configure, which came in handy with Azure Firewall.

Layer four security is to be expected. In contrast, with Azure Firewall, you can extend it to the other Wi-Fi layers.

I'm not sure if that is still supported because we haven't yet explored all of the features, but it was on our future roadmap to integrate all restriction traffic and anything with our ITSM tool, most likely ServiceNow. So that an auto ticket can be generated for the ingenious, remediation and fixing can be done. Any type of automation can come into play there as well. Those are on our to-do list. But we're still looking into it. It is yet to be discovered.

It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now.

As I previously stated, the same integration, most likely ITSM tool integration, is one of those features we'd like to investigate to see if it exists or not, so we can have a more forward-thinking perspective on it.

We implemented Azure Firewall approximately three months ago. 

I have been working with Azure Firewall for two to three months.

I am working with the latest version.

The stability is excellent. As of now, we have not been faced with any issues, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it remains that way.

It is auto-scalable and highly available.

The number of people using this solution in our organization is quite limited as it is restricted as of now. We currently have three people who are working with this solution.

We may get one or two people on board, but for the time being it is restricted because it is a security device and we don't want to expose much of the admin privileges to the users or administrators, which is why it is restricted.

We get enterprise support as well as Microsoft support with our premium version.

Technical support is also fine. It is sufficient in my opinion. We have a Microsoft solution architect aligned with us as well, and if any new services, or deployment, as well as configuration, are required, he comes into the picture and we can get support from him. Aside from that, we have technical support for case-by-case scenarios such as severity A, B, and C for Microsoft. So far Microsoft support has not been an issue. I have been working with Microsoft for the past 10 years, I don't see much of an issue from Microsoft on support, at least from my point of view.

We have Barracuda, FortiGate, and Check Point as well.

As a comparison, it would be difficult because it is managed by a completely different team from an on-premises perspective. Before deploying Azure, we were looking for what parameters actually made the point, The security team was able to identify that it was good enough for our security parameters to meet our company's requirements. This is why we are using it, and how we deployed the Azure Firewall, subject to security approvals.

The rest of the firewalls on-premises are managed by a different team.

The initial setup was pretty easy. 

In terms of configuration, we haven't faced much of an issue.

The deployment and configuration took two to three hours.

The maintenance parameter is supported by Microsoft. Being a cloud product is very simple in terms of maintenance; we don't need to worry about any kind of patching activity or anything else. On other products, we must check the vendor and follow the OEM recommendation. This is an area that Azure has simplified.

Microsoft assisted us during the deployment. We had a solution engineer from Microsoft.

The deployment was straightforward, on the other hand, from a configuration standpoint we had some help to avoid any issues or misconfiguration. A Firewall is something that is very important from a security point of view. You cannot have any loopholes on that parameter.

We purchased the premium version for our enterprise support and it was quite good.

There isn't much of a pricing licensing model in Azure. Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services. So far, the best estimate we've found for our enterprise solution is around 90,000 INR rupees in India. So that's what we discovered. And because we are using three different subscriptions and managing it from a hub network, we divide it and it comes to around 30,000 in INR fee subscription. That is a suite comparison that we have also done with regard to the licenses of other products. And we discovered that it is also comparable in terms of pricing.

When it comes to firewalls or any other type of security device, it is more of an analysis done by your security team to determine whether or not it meets your security requirements. If we are only talking about product and features, I would recommend it because from a cloud perspective, and specifically, if you are using Azure, it is quite easy from a manageability, operations, and configuration standpoint, with respect to the PaaS services.

Whereas if you deploy other vendors on Azure, managing the PaaS services would be difficult because Azure uses service tags, which you can simply configure in Azure Firewall for your PaaS services and other, even VMs. However, if you use other product vendors, there will be some kind of IP address restriction.

If you're in an Azure environment, I'd recommend Azure Firewalls. If it is any other type of environment, we will most likely have to reassess it.

As of now, it is pretty easy to rate it as nine. I won't rate it as 10 because we haven't searched much of the features. I would rate Azure Firewall a nine out of ten.

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.

We use Azure Firewall to protect customer workloads. 

Azure Firewall is a cloud-native solution that removes the pain of load balancers. 

The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users. 

I have been using the product for three years. 

The tool's stability is great. 

The solution's scalability is great. 

Microsoft's support is quick.

Positive

The tool's deployment is straightforward. 

We did the deployment internally. 

Azure Firewall is expensive. 

Azure Firewall has helped us save 30 percent of the time. We don't require time for designing architecture and support. It frees up time and helps me focus on other tasks. 

The product has helped us save a decent amount of money. I rate it an eight out of ten.