Azure DDoS Protection Tier Decision Tree

To determine if your workload justifies the Standard tier, you must evaluate application latency requirements, traffic throughput baselines, and SLA commitments. If your application cannot tolerate even minor performance degradation during an active threat, the Standard tier's rapid automated response is essential. Furthermore, the Standard tier provides financial protection by offering service credits for scaling costs incurred by backend resources during a documented attack. Organizations with strict uptime SLAs or high financial exposure from downtime should choose the Standard tier to minimize business risk.