Azure Ddos Protection

Azure DDoS Protection

Azure DDoS Protection sits on the Microsoft global network and absorbs layer 3/4 volumetric and protocol attacks before they reach your workloads. The free Infrastructure Protection layer protects Azure as a platform; the paid DDoS Protection plans give you dedicated, profile-tuned mitigation, attack analytics, post-incident reports, cost protection, and Rapid Response support for your resources.

When to use

Public-facing workloads with a non-trivial cost-of-downtime: e-commerce, regulated financial APIs, multiplayer gaming, public-sector services, internet-facing AI APIs, streaming, and any campaign exposed to politically or commercially motivated DDoS.

Do not use this skill for application-layer (HTTP) attack mitigation alone (azure-waf), Azure Firewall design (azure-firewall), or third-party DDoS appliance patterns.

Tier selection

Pricing model differs: Network Protection is a flat fee per plan covering many resources; IP Protection is per-IP. Estate size flips the economics — model both before choosing.

Approach

1. Decide tier per workload.

   • 50+ public IPs across multiple VNets → Network Protection on the relevant VNets.
   • Specific internet-facing app on a single Standard public IP → IP Protection.
   • Mixed → both, scoped appropriately.

2. Enable on the VNet (Network Protection) at deployment time. The platform begins traffic profiling immediately; it learns normal patterns over ~7 days and auto-tunes the per-IP mitigation policy. Mitigation accuracy improves the longer the profile runs.

3. Static thresholds are not a thing, by design. Mitigation is adaptive. Don't architect on the assumption of a fixed Mbps cap.

4. Configure alerts. DDoS metrics and alerts are first-class:

   • "Under DDoS attack or not" boolean per public IP.
   • Inbound packets dropped by DDoS Protection.
   • Inbound TCP/UDP packets to be triggered for DDoS. Wire to Sentinel via Log Analytics + activity-log alerts.

5. Simulate before incident. BreakingPoint Cloud and Red Button are Microsoft- approved simulation partners. Simulate quarterly on non-prod public IPs to validate mitigation engagement and runbook execution.

6. Attack analytics + post-incident reports. During and after an attack, the product produces a mitigation report with attack vectors, traffic volume, top sources, and mitigation actions — useful evidence for board/regulator communications.

7. DDoS Rapid Response (DRR). Plan on Network Protection includes engagement with Microsoft's DDoS response team during active attacks. Pre-stage:

   • DRR contact info in your IR runbook.
   • Customer support contract type that allows DRR (usually Premier/Unified or Pro Direct) — verify.
   • Designated owner who is authorized to engage Microsoft.

8. Cost protection. A successful DDoS attack can balloon scale-out costs (autoscaled App Service, additional bandwidth, CDN egress). Network Protection includes service- credit cost protection — file the claim post-incident with the mitigation report.

9. Combine with WAF and Front Door. DDoS Protection covers L3/L4. L7 attacks (HTTP floods, slow loris, business-logic abuse) need WAF on Front Door / Application Gateway in front of your workload. Architect both.

Guardrails

• Infrastructure Protection (free) is not nothing, but is not enough for high-value public workloads. No SLA, no analytics, no cost protection.
• Don't enable Network Protection on a VNet with no internet-facing public IP. No effect, full price.
• Mitigation needs profile time. A brand-new public IP enabled minutes before an attack benefits less than one with 7+ days of baseline.
• WAF and DDoS are complementary, not substitutes. L7 attacks bypass L3/L4 mitigation entirely.
• Test in non-prod, never live customer endpoints. Simulation partners only on approved IPs in approved windows.
• Standard public IP only. Basic public IPs aren't supported for IP Protection (and Basic SKU is being retired).
• CDN-fronted workloads are partially shielded by the CDN's own DDoS posture; still consider DDoS Protection on the origin.
• Don't use Azure DDoS as your DR plan. Mitigation reduces impact; it does not guarantee zero impact.

Common anti-patterns

• "Free Infrastructure Protection is enough" — until the first targeted attack, then no analytics, no Rapid Response, no cost protection, no audit evidence.
• "IP Protection on 200 IPs" — bill larger than Network Protection plan would have been. Model the math.
• "Activated DDoS Protection during the attack" — profile is empty; less effective. Always pre-enable.
• "Skipped simulation, never tested runbook" — first real engagement is fumbled.
• "DRR not pre-arranged" — incident response wastes 60 minutes finding the right Microsoft contract path.
• "Architected without WAF in front" — L7 attacks succeed through L3/L4 mitigation.
• "Customer support tier doesn't permit DRR" — surprise during incident.

Example prompts

• Plan DDoS Protection coverage for a 6-region public-API estate with 80 public IPs.
• Compare Network vs IP Protection cost for a tenant with 25 public IPs in 3 VNets.
• Build the DDoS attack runbook including DRR engagement steps and stakeholder comms templates.
• Quarterly DDoS simulation with BreakingPoint Cloud — scope, success criteria, rollback.
• Wire DDoS metrics + alerts to Sentinel with detections for sustained mitigation events.
• Architect Front Door + WAF + DDoS Network Protection for a regulated e-commerce workload.
• File the cost protection claim after a 14-hour mitigated attack — what evidence and process.

Microsoft Learn

• Overview: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/ddos-protection-overview
• Tier comparison: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/ddos-protection-sku-comparison
• Enable Network Protection: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/manage-ddos-protection
• Enable IP Protection: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/manage-ddos-protection
• Metrics and alerts: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/diagnostic-logging
• Simulation testing: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/test-through-simulations
• Rapid Response: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/ddos-rapid-response
• Cost protection / SLA: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/ddos-protection-overview
• Reference architectures: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ddos-protection/ddos-protection-reference-architectures