Understanding Azure Firewall Cost Structure

The cost structure of Azure Firewall is quite straightforward. You pay for the number of virtual networks you have, with a base price of $0.012 per hour per virtual network.

Each virtual network can have up to 100 network interfaces, and each network interface costs $0.012 per hour. This means you can have up to 10,000 network interfaces across all your virtual networks, but you'll only be charged for the actual number you use.

The cost also depends on the throughput you need, with different pricing tiers available for different levels of traffic. The Basic tier is free, but it only supports up to 1 Gbps of throughput, while the Standard tier costs $0.025 per hour per Gbps and supports up to 10 Gbps.

When it comes to purchasing Azure Firewall, you have two main options: pay-as-you-go or a subscription plan. The pay-as-you-go option charges you based on the number of virtual machines you use, with a minimum commitment of 1 hour.

Azure Firewall pricing is based on the number of virtual machines used, with a minimum commitment of 1 hour. This means you're only charged for the time your virtual machines are running, making it a great option for projects with variable usage.

The subscription plan, on the other hand, offers a 12-month commitment, which can provide cost savings for consistent usage. You can also purchase Azure Firewall as part of an Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances (RIs) which can provide up to 75% discount compared to pay-as-you-go pricing.

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Add-on charges can add up quickly, but understanding what you're paying for can help you make informed decisions.

Custom Rules are available for $1 per month, which is a relatively affordable option if you need to create and manage your own rules.

If you're processing a large number of requests, you'll also be charged $0.6 per million requests.

For a more comprehensive solution, Managed Ruleset offers a default ruleset for $20 per month, which can be a good option if you don't need to create custom rules.

However, if you're still processing a large number of requests, you'll be charged $1 per million requests, which is more expensive than the Custom Rules option.

Here's a summary of the add-on charges:

Azure Firewall Features are designed to provide robust security for your network. The firewall is completely stateful, allowing you to customize what traffic is classified as allowed or denied certain ports and protocols.

You can create source and destination IP addressing rules centrally or individually, and apply them to multiple subscriptions and virtual networks. This helps keep things looking consistent across your network boundaries.

Azure Firewall supports stateful filtering of Layer 3 IP protocols and Layer 4 network protocols, giving you fine-grained control over your network traffic. The Any/Any/Wildcard rule allows you to block all traffic with only an exception called a white list.

FQDN tags help you allow well-known Azure service traffic through your firewall, such as network traffic from Windows Update. This makes it easier to manage security rules and ensure that authorized services can pass through unhindered.

Service tags are pre-defined labels that you can associate with your IP address prefix to help manage security rules more efficiently. They work in conjunction with security rules to tell Azure infrastructure components about the services you want to allow to traverse your network.

Azure Firewall is a cloud-based network security service that helps protect your Azure resources from unauthorized access. It's designed to work seamlessly with Azure Virtual Networks and other Azure services.

It provides advanced threat protection, including intrusion detection and prevention, to identify and block malicious traffic. This helps prevent cyber attacks and data breaches.

Azure Firewall also supports web filtering, which allows you to block or allow access to specific websites and applications based on their content. This is useful for organizations that need to restrict access to certain websites or applications.

You can configure Azure Firewall to work with your existing Azure resources, including virtual machines, virtual networks, and load balancers. This makes it easy to integrate into your existing Azure setup.

Azure Firewall is cost-effective compared to traditional Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs). This is due to its fixed hourly cost of $1.25/firewall/hour and a variable per GB processed cost that supports auto scaling.

Most customers save 30-50% in comparison to an NVA deployment model. This is a significant cost saving, especially for high-throughput customers.

Azure Firewall's pricing includes a per GB cost of $0.016/GB, which is a 46.6% reduction from the previous price. This change ensures that high-throughput customers can maintain cost-effectiveness.

Here's a comparison of the total cost of ownership (TCO) between Azure Firewall and NVAs with full HA (active/active) deployment:

This comparison highlights the cost-effectiveness of Azure Firewall compared to traditional NVAs.

Azure Firewall offers a range of features that make it a powerful tool for securing your network.

Network Traffic Filtering Rules allow you to track and log network activity, blocking or allowing traffic based on source and destination IP addressing rules.

You can customize what traffic is classified as allowed or denied by specifying certain ports and protocols.

Rules can be applied to multiple subscriptions and virtual networks, ensuring consistency across your network.

The firewall supports stateful filtering of Layer 3 IP protocols and Layer 4 network protocols.

The Any/Any/Wildcard rule is useful for blocking all traffic with only an exception, known as a white list.

Application FQDN Filtering Rules enable you to limit outbound HTTPS traffic to a specified list of fully qualified domain names.

This feature doesn't require TLS termination, making it a convenient option.

FQDN Tags let well-known Azure service traffic pass through your firewall, allowing you to easily allow traffic from services like Windows Update.

Service Tags are pre-defined labels that help manage security rules, making it quicker and easier to allow traffic from specific services.

Threat Intelligence is based on the Microsoft Threat Intelligence feed, enabling you to protect against malicious IP addresses and domains.

Policy Logic is a key feature of Azure Firewall.

Azure Firewall Manager policy pricing logic is designed to be simple and cost-effective.

No Azure Firewall Manager policy charges will be done for policies that are associated to a single firewall.

This means you can use Azure Firewall Manager without incurring additional costs for policy pricing.

Secured Virtual Hubs are a key feature of Azure Firewall, allowing you to create a secure and isolated network for your virtual machines.

The cost of Secured Virtual Hubs is based on deployment hours, with three pricing tiers: Basic, Standard, and Premium.

Each tier has a different cost per deployment hour, but the exact prices are not specified in the pricing documentation.

You can deploy multiple Secured Virtual Hubs, and each one will incur a separate cost based on deployment hours.

The cost of data processed by Secured Virtual Hubs is also based on the amount of data transferred, with prices varying depending on the tier.

Here's a summary of the Secured Virtual Hubs pricing tiers:

Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a robust security feature that protects your web applications from common threats. It's included with Azure Front Door Premium and offers additional security capabilities such as web application and API protection, integration with Microsoft Threat Intelligence, Bot and DDoS protection, and security analytics.

WAF pricing is straightforward, with a monthly fixed charge and request-based processing charges. You'll also incur add-on charges for Custom Rules and Managed Rulesets as configured in the policy.

Azure WAF is also available for deployment through Azure Firewall Manager, and pricing will apply to any policies deployed this way.

Azure Firewall Policies are a key feature of Azure Firewall, allowing you to manage and control traffic in a centralized way.

The pricing for Azure Firewall policies is based on the number of policies you have per region, with a flat rate per policy.

Policy Analytics is an additional feature that provides insights and analytics on your firewall policies, and it's billed separately.

Policy Analytics is billed hourly, with a monthly enablement fee, and the price shown is based on 730 hours per month.

Here's a breakdown of the pricing for Azure Firewall policies and Policy Analytics:

Note that the number of Firewalls attached to the policy does not affect the pricing for Policy Analytics.