Azure Firewall Adds New Resource Health and Latency Probe Metric Features

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft has announced some new monitoring and logging capabilities for Azure Firewall. The first new feature that the company highlighted today is a public preview of the new Resource Health section.

Azure Resource Health enables IT admins to monitor the overall health of their Azure Firewall system. The feature makes it easier for administrators to detect and address service problems that may impact their Azure resources. Azure Firewall Resource Health performs several checks based on the resource type. These checks are designed to deal with three types of issues, including unplanned events, planned events, and events triggered by user actions.

“Resource Health allows IT teams to receive proactive notifications regarding potential health degradations and recommended mitigation actions for each health event type. For instance, you can determine if the firewall is running as expected with an “Available” status or if there was downtime due to platform events with an “Unavailable” status,” Microsoft explained.

Azure Firewall Adds New Resource Health and Latency Probe Metric Features

Microsoft also announced that the Latency Probe metric feature is generally available for Azure Firewall. It lets IT admins measure the overall latency and gain insights into the health of the Azure Firewall service. The new tool, which is powered by the Ping Mesh technology, measures the average latency of the ping packets to the firewall.

Azure Firewall adds Embedded Firewall Workbooks in public preview

Last but not least, Microsoft has released the Azure Firewall Workbook in public preview for commercial customers. The feature helps administrators to gain valuable insights from Azure Firewall events and examine network and application rules. It’s also possible to analyze details about firewall activities across ports, addresses, and URLs.

If you’re interested, you can head over to Azure Firewall Monitoring in the Azure Portal and click Logs, Metrics, or Workbooks to access the new monitoring and logging features. Meanwhile, the company has urged customers to provide their feedback to improve its Azure Firewall service.