What Are Network Security Groups (NSG) And Firewalls In Azure?

Introduction:

To begin with, Microsoft Azure is a leading computing platform that provides businesses with a wide range of cloud-based services and solutions. Along with this, using it allows organizations to build, deploy, and manage applications and services.

Significant Features of Microsoft Azure:

Microsoft Azure is a comprehensive cloud computing platform with various services to cater to diverse business needs. This solution comes with a vast ecosystem and it continuously updates and expands its offerings as per the evolving business demands. To learn more about it, one can visit Azure Certification. Here are the popular features of Microsoft Azure.

• Virtual Machines: It is useful for creating and managing virtual machines with various operating systems.  
• Azure Functions: They are useful for building serverless applications without managing infrastructure.  
• Azure App Service: This feature is useful for developing and deploying web and mobile applications.  
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): They help in managing the containerized applications with Kubernetes.
• Azure Blob Storage: It is useful for storing a large amount of unstructured data.  
• Azure Disk Storage: This feature provides businesses with persistent storage for virtual machines.  
• Azure File Storage: It offers managed files that can be shared across multiple applications.  
• Azure SQL Database: It is a popular managed relational database service.
• Azure Cosmos DB: This is a globally distributed and multi-model database.  
• Virtual Networks: They are useful for creating isolated private networks in the cloud.  
• Azure Load Balancer: It is useful for distributing the traffic across multiple instances.  
• Azure Security Center: This solution provides centralized security management and threat protection.  
• Azure Key Vault: It helps in storing and managing the cryptographic keys, secrets, and certificates.  

What are Network Security Groups (NSG) in Azure?

The Azure Network Security Group (NSG) is a security filter by MS Azure that works on Layers 3 and 4 of the OSI model. Along with this, using it provides businesses with the inbound and outbound security rules for Azure resources. In addition, this feature facilitates inbound and outbound rules. This helps in defining which traffic is allowed or denied based on source, destination, port, and protocol. Furthermore, it provides priority rules taking precedence and also comes with the default rules that deny all inbound traffic and allow all outbound traffic. Here are its significant features:

• Inbound and Outbound Security Rules: Using NSG allows users to create rules that specify which network traffic is permitted or denied.
• Security Rule Collections: This solution helps in organizing the security rules into collections and also facilitates easier management.
• Default Security Rules: It offers various default rules that deny the inbound traffic and allow all outbound traffic. It can be organized accordingly as per the specific security requirements.  
• Association with Subnets or Network Interfaces: This solution also works accordingly with the subnets or individual network interfaces. Thus, providing granular control over network traffic.  
• Priority-Based Evaluation: It facilitates quality evaluation and helps in evaluating the rules in order of priority. Thus, the higher-priority rules come first.
• Logging and Monitoring: NSG also facilitates great logging and monitoring and can also be configured to log traffic information for analysis and troubleshooting.  

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What are Firewalls in Azure?

Now, the Azure Firewall is a fully managed solution that protects your Azure Virtual Network resources. In addition, it provides state-full firewalling, intrusion prevention, threat intelligence, and application filtering. Firewall in Azure also facilitates threat intelligence and protects against known threats and vulnerabilities. Along with this, it provides a web application firewall that protects the web applications from common attacks. This solution offers virtual network protection and secures all resources within a virtual network. Many institutes provide the Azure Cloud Certification course and enrolling in them can help you start a career in this domain. Here are its significant features:

• Stateful Firewalling: It is for tracking the network connections for inbound and outbound traffic, providing enhanced security.
• Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): This system protects against common network attacks and blocks malicious traffic.  
• Threat Intelligence: This feature is useful for leveraging Microsoft's threat intelligence and protects against known threats.  
• Web Application Firewall (WAF): This feature protects web applications from common vulnerabilities and attacks.
• Network Traffic Filtering: It allows granular control over inbound and outbound network traffic.
• High Availability: Azure Firewall comes with built-in high availability and ensures uninterrupted protection.  
• Scalability: This is a scalable solution that can automatically scale as per the changing traffic demands.  
• Integration with Azure Monitor: This solution provides businesses with detailed logs and metrics for monitoring and troubleshooting.  

Differences Between Network Security Groups (NSG) & Firewall in Azure:

Here are the key differences between the Network Security Groups (NSG) & Firewalls in Azure.

Conclusion:

Azure Network Security Groups (NSGs) and Azure Firewall are both essential components of Azure's security infrastructure. However, they serve different purposes. NSGs provide basic network filtering at layers 3 and 4 of the OSI model, while Azure Firewall offers advanced security features. By understanding the capabilities of both NSGs and Azure Firewalls, organizations can implement a layered security approach to protect their Azure resources effectively.