Technical Tip: Upgrading Azure Firewall VM Size (VM-02 to VM-04 or VM-04 to VM-08) and registering the new contract

To upgrade an Azure Firewall from VM-02 to VM-04, follow these steps:

• Schedule a Maintenance Window: Ensure a maintenance window is scheduled, as the upgrade process may cause downtime.

• Back up the current configuration.

• Register the New Contract:

  • Register the new contract in the Fortinet portal.
  • If the new contract has a different CPU count than the existing one, it cannot be registered as an upgrade. In this case, the new contract will be registered as a new serial number.

• Resize the Virtual Machine:

  • Resize the virtual machine to match the new license's vCPU requirements. 
  • Shut down the VM.
  • Go to the Azure portal and navigate to the VMs page, then go to Availability + Scale -> Size and select the desired size.

• Apply the new license.

  • Turn on the VM and apply the new VM-04 license on the FortiGate.

• Reboot the firewall and Verify Functionality:

  • Reboot the firewall after applying new VM-04 License and verify that the Azure firewall is functioning as expected.