Migrate CDN Standard Website to Azure Front Door

Question

I have a very simple static website that I put up on Azure CDN Standard. My domain name and SSL certificate were all done through Azure. I received an email several months ago about migrating to Azure Front Door as support will cease in a couple of years. Since I want to maintain the website going forward, I have two questions. What will be the minimum pricing (right now I pay close to zero as it's a simple website), and secondly, if I do migrate will it still be compatible with file management using Filezilla Pro.

Answer 1

Hi @Alan Goldhammer

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform! Thank you for asking your question here.

• The good news is that for a very simple static website, the cost difference after migrating to Azure Front Door (Standard tier) might still be minimal, though likely not zero.
• Azzure Front Door Standard Tier is the most relevant tier for your situation, as it's optimized for static content delivery. It has a base fee of about $35/month, and then additional costs based on usage. For your reference: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/pricing/details/frontdoor/
• This is the amount of data transferred from Azure Front Door to your users. For a small, static website, this is usually quite low. Costs are per GB and vary by region, generally decreasing with higher usage.
• Front Door charges per 10,000 HTTP/HTTPS requests. Again, for a low-traffic static site, this should be minimal.
• Front Door allows custom rules, most simple static sites won't need these, and the Standard tier includes the first 5 rules in the base fee. For your reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/web-application-firewall/afds/afds-overview#custom-authored-rules
• If you use any Web Application Firewall features in Front Door, there will be associated costs.
• Azure offers a free tier for many services, but Azure Front Door Standard does not have a completely free tier.
• Don't forget that you'll still need to store your static website content somewhere, typically in Azure Blob Storage. These costs are usually very low for small sites.
• Migrating to Azure Front Door will not directly affect your ability to manage files using Filezilla Pro.
• Front Door is a Content Delivery Network. Its primary role is to cache and deliver your website content closer to users, improving performance and reducing latency. It doesn't manage your underlying storage. For your reference: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/products/frontdoor#:~:text=Azure%20Front%20Door%20is%20a%20modern%20cloud%20content%20delivery%20network%20(CDN)%20service%20that%20delivers%20high%20performance%2C%20scalability%2C%20and%20secure%20user%20experiences%20for%20your%20content%20and%20applications.
• You'll likely still be using Azure Blob Storage to store your website's files
• Filezilla Pro can connect to Azure Blob Storage using the appropriate credentials (account name and access key or SAS token). This connection is independent of Front Door.
• You'll use Filezilla Pro to connect to your Azure Blob Storage account and upload/update your website files as usual.
• Azure Front Door will be configured to point to your Blob Storage as the origin. When users request your website, Front Door will check if it has a cached copy.
• If not, it will fetch the content from Blob Storage, cache it, and serve it to the user. After you update files in Blob Storage, you'll likely need to invalidate the Front Door cache so that users get the latest version. This is typically done through the Azure portal or using Azure CLI/PowerShell.
• Get a more precise cost estimate based on your expected traffic and storage needs. For your reference: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/
• When you migrate, monitor your usage in the Azure portal. This will give you a real-world understanding of your costs

Kindly let us know if the above helps or you need further assistance on this issue.

Thanks,

Sai.