What Is The Difference Between Azure Front Door And CDN ?

Microsoft Azure presents two services, Azure Front Door which is a cloud-based service that delivers a scalable and safe entry point for the applications, and Azure CDN (Content Delivery Network) which is a service that allows enterprises to deliver content to users fast and efficiently. These services have different purposes and are tailored to meet specific requirements in content delivery and application acceleration.

Azure Front Door

Azure Front Door, we can efficiently improve the performance and reach of our web applications by employing the comprehensive Microsoft global network. Azure Front Door is a scalable and efficient entry point that makes sure that our applications are delivered fast and seamlessly.

Azure Front Door functions as a global HTTP(S) load balancer and makes sure that traffic is equally spread to backends based on the defined routing. With the help of Azure Front Door, we can achieve access to a complete suite of abilities that surpass traditional content delivery. This makes it the ideal choice for applications that need developed traffic routing, load balancing, and enhanced security components.

Key Features Of Azure Front Door

1. Allocation Of Traffic Efficiently

• Azure Front Door helps efficient allocation of incoming traffic among various backend servers.
• Makes sure high performance and uninterrupted availability through global load balancing.

2. Smart Traffic Routing

• Routes traffic established on aspects like latency, geography and priority.
• Makes sure users join to the most primary and reliable backend for an improved experience.

3. Termination SSL

• SSL termination to lower the workload on backend servers.
• Improves the overall implementation across the board.

4. WAF (Web Application Firewall)

• Feature like Web Application Firewall it is a build-in feature saves applications from web exposures and attacks.
• Has security components like SSL offloading and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) security.

5. Support For Custom Domain

• Permits the use of custom domains, delivering users with a special and personalized experience.
• Improves trademark/brand essence and user attention.

Azure CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) delivering static content like images, videos, stylesheets, and scripts. It’s all about giving users that high performance and super fast delivery. it can effortlessly spread content to users in a quick and efficient method. By keeping content in edge servers placed worldwide, users can easily access the content from a server that is geographically closest to them and that is how it improves the overall user experience because content delivered faster and low latency.

Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) is optimized for caching and spreading content closer to the end-users, resulting in quicker load times and decreases the server loads i.e. optimizing for caching and distribution and makes sure that faster load times and less strain on servers.

Key Features Of Azure CDN

1. Reach The Global

• over 200 locations globally Operated, providing seamless content delivery to users regardless of their location.
• Completes a overall global presence for improved accessibility.

2. Increased Performance And Lower Latency

• Delivers increased performance with fast content delivery and lower latency.
• Global edge locations cache static content, decreasing the workload on the primary server and enhancing content delivery rate.

3. Acceleration Of Dynamic Site

• Dynamic Site Acceleration for accelerating the delivery of dynamic content, included.
• make sure efficient and quick delivery of both content static and dynamic.

4. Secure Delivery Of Content

• Allows secure content delivery by dispatching/posting content over HTTPS.
• Provides the confidentiality and integrity of data during transit.

5. Geo-Redundancy For High Availability

• automatically replicates content in numerous locations to ensure backups and constant availability.
• Enhances reliability and guarantees steady content availability, even when faced with potential failures.

Difference Between Azure Front Door And CDN

Parameter	Azure Front Door	Azure CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Main Aim	Comprehensive application delivery	focused on content(static content) delivery
Routing of Traffic	enhance load balancing, and advanced traffic routing	Efficient content delivery
Balancing of Load	load balancing on Global for backend servers	delivery optimization with less emphasis in balancing of load
Security	WAF (Web Application Firewall), build-in feature,DDoS protection,SSL.	fewer advanced security features, Basic DDoS and SSL certificates
Use Cases	enhance routing ,security needs, global web applications, microservices, and dynamic content delivery	high volumes web application with static and dynamic data, e-commerce websites, image/video galleries and services like Streaming.
Scalability	High	Highly along with global POPs
Complexity	High	Simpler
Pricing	As par set usage and bandwidth	As par Storage and bandwidth usage

Similarities Between Azure Front Door And CDN

• Both Azure Front Door and CDN are highly scalable to manage large volumes of traffic and adjust to our application growth, Both provide the infrastructure and tools required to scale the resources, Both can seamlessly scale up or down to fulfil our varying needs without compromising the performance.
• Azure Front Door and CDN both can seamlessly Integrations with other Azure services and because of this it allows us to leverage other Azure benefits/services.
• Azure Front Door and CDN both can contribute to effective performance gains to our application and delivery of content simply by lowering the latency and offloading origin server load.
• Security components to save our applications and content features like WAF, DDoS protection, and SSL used by both Azure Front Door and CDN, and because of these abilities contribute to a assured web delivery infrastructure.
• Developed to optimize content delivery on a international/global scale, power a network of edge sites spread globally to decrease the latency and enhance the implementation, that is both have similarities in Global Content Delivery.

SSL Termination And SSL Offloading In Azure Front Door

SSL termination involves decrypting SSL-encrypted traffic as it enters, before it actually gets to the backend. and, while on the other hand SSL offloading, the SSL processing is moved from backend servers to a service e.g. Front Door. This innovative technique not only enhances server performance but also helps the load on the servers.

Parameter	SSL termination	SSL offloading
Decryption	Yes	Yes
Re-encryption	no	Yes
Backend Traffic	Unencrypted	Encrypted
Security	Partial	full

Conclusion

Both Azure Front Door and Azure CDN are two most effective services that can allow companies to deliver content fast and efficiently, Azure Front Door and Azure CDN both play a very vital roles in optimizing content delivery, they serve various purposes and to distinct use cases. Azure Front Door is a complete application that delivery assistance that’s perfect for global applications with complicated routing and security needs. while on the other hand Azure CDN is specifically designed to ensure quick and efficient content delivery, creating it the ideal choice for websites that prioritize accelerating both content static and dynamic. Azure Front Door and Azure CDN both offer dependable and protected/safe content delivery solutions, they have various core powers and target various types of users.

Azure Front Door And CDN – FAQs

What Are Primary Use Cases For Azure Front Door?

Azure Front Door generally used for the case where applications with a very high user base that need developed/enhanced traffic routing, load balancing, and security elements, Azure Front Door standard for guaranteeing low latency, high availability, and delivery on a global scale efficient application.

Is It Possible To Use Both Azure Front Door And Azure CDN Together?

Yes, both Azure Front Door and Azure CDN used jointly to develop a complete content delivery system. e.g. developed traffic routing and load balancing can be done by Front Door, while on the other hand optimizing the delivery of static content can be done by CDN.

How Do Azure Front Door And Azure CDN Handle High Availability?

Azure Front Door and Azure CDN Both are created for high availability., both have redundancy and failover mechanisms in order to makes sure that content is supplied reliably even the failures of network.