Load balancing refers to the process of distributing workloads evenly across multiple computing resources. The effective use of load balancers helps optimize resource utilization, reduce response times, improve throughput, and prevent any single resource from becoming overloaded.

Azure offers robust load balancing solutions that allow users to distribute traffic across various computing assets efficiently. Among the popular Azure load balancing services are Traffic Manager, Azure Load Balancer, Front Door, and Application Gateway. This guide focuses on explaining the fundamentals of Azure Load Balancer and its key features.

Understanding Azure Load Balancer: A Key Tool for High Availability and Traffic Distribution

Azure Load Balancer is an essential service in Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem, designed to ensure high availability and reliable performance of applications by distributing incoming network traffic across multiple backend instances. As a fully managed, scalable service, it plays a critical role in maintaining seamless and uninterrupted access to applications, regardless of traffic volume or application load.

Operating at Layer 4 of the OSI model, Azure Load Balancer is capable of handling both TCP and UDP traffic. Its primary function is to direct client requests efficiently to virtual machines (VMs) or services located in the backend, based on user-defined load balancing rules and health checks.

This article dives into the core features, benefits, and functionalities of Azure Load Balancer, explaining how it optimizes the distribution of traffic, ensures fault tolerance, and provides essential tools for configuration and management.

Key Features of Azure Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer’s architecture is designed for performance, scalability, and reliability. By distributing inbound traffic across multiple backend instances, the load balancer ensures that no single resource is overwhelmed, thus maintaining the continuous availability of your applications. Here are some of the primary features of the service:

1. Layer 4 Load Balancing: Azure Load Balancer operates at Layer 4 of the OSI model, dealing with the transport layer. This allows it to distribute traffic based on IP addresses and ports, providing fast and efficient routing for both TCP and UDP protocols.

2. High Availability: By automatically distributing traffic across multiple backend instances, Azure Load Balancer ensures that your application remains available even in the event of a failure. If one virtual machine (VM) or service becomes unhealthy or unresponsive, the traffic is rerouted to healthy instances without disrupting service.

3. Health Probes: The load balancer uses health probes to continuously monitor the status of backend VMs or services. If a backend resource fails the health probe, Azure Load Balancer automatically stops directing traffic to that instance and redirects it to healthier VMs.

4. Scalability: Azure Load Balancer supports massive scalability, handling millions of concurrent connections with low latency. This is essential for high-traffic applications that require constant scaling based on demand.

Types of Azure Load Balancer

Azure offers two main types of load balancers: Public Load Balancer and Internal Load Balancer. Each type serves a specific purpose based on the nature of the traffic and the environment in which the load balancer is deployed.

1. Public Load Balancer

A Public Load Balancer is used when the application needs to handle internet-facing traffic. This type of load balancer is designed to provide access to virtual machines or services that are publicly accessible on the internet. It assigns a public IP address to the frontend, allowing clients across the internet to interact with the application.

• Use Case: Public Load Balancers are commonly used in scenarios such as web applications, APIs, and services that need to be available globally.

• Benefits: With automatic failover and scaling capabilities, Public Load Balancer ensures that your application can handle large volumes of inbound traffic efficiently and securely.

2. Internal Load Balancer

An Internal Load Balancer (ILB), on the other hand, is used to distribute traffic within a private network or a hybrid cloud environment. It assigns a private IP address to the frontend, ensuring that only resources within the same virtual network (or hybrid environments) can access the load balancer.

• Use Case: This type is typically used for backend services or for applications where only internal access is required, such as in scenarios where different parts of an application or microservices communicate internally.

• Benefits: ILBs improve the internal traffic management and provide a seamless experience for applications without exposing sensitive services to the internet.

How Azure Load Balancer Works

Azure Load Balancer operates by routing incoming traffic to one or more backend resources based on predefined load balancing rules. The process works as follows:

1. Frontend IP Configuration: The load balancer is associated with a frontend IP address (either public or private), which acts as a single entry point for clients to access your application.

2. Routing Rules: Users can define load balancing rules that determine how traffic is distributed across backend resources. These rules specify the ports and IP addresses associated with the frontend and backend.

3. Health Probes: Azure Load Balancer continuously monitors the health of the backend instances using health probes. If any instance fails the probe, traffic is automatically routed to healthy instances, maintaining service availability.

4. Traffic Distribution: When a client sends a request, Azure Load Balancer evaluates the load balancing rules, determines the most suitable backend instance based on factors like load, availability, and health, and routes the traffic accordingly.

5. Fault Tolerance: If a backend instance becomes unhealthy, the Load Balancer quickly reroutes traffic to the remaining healthy instances. This ensures that user traffic is always served by a functional resource, preventing downtime.

Benefits of Using Azure Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer offers several benefits that make it an essential service for any enterprise or cloud-based application requiring high availability and efficient traffic management. Some key advantages include:

1. Cost-Effective Scalability: With Azure Load Balancer, businesses can automatically scale resources up or down to meet demand, reducing the need for manual intervention. This ensures that you pay only for what you use, optimizing cost-efficiency.

2. Enhanced Reliability: By distributing traffic across multiple backend instances, Azure Load Balancer provides redundancy and ensures that applications remain available even in the event of individual instance failure.

3. Simplified Traffic Management: Azure Load Balancer simplifies the process of managing and distributing traffic by offering intuitive configuration options through the Azure Portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. It is easy to set up and manage, saving time and effort.

4. Seamless Integration with Other Azure Services: Azure Load Balancer integrates seamlessly with other Azure services, such as Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and Azure Virtual Networks. This allows for a streamlined workflow in your cloud infrastructure.

5. Global Distribution: The Public Load Balancer ensures that your application can handle internet-facing traffic from any geographic location, providing a global reach without compromising performance or reliability.

Configuring Azure Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer can be configured using several management tools, including the Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, and Resource Manager templates. These tools allow users to:

• Create and manage load balancers.

• Configure frontend IPs, backend pools, and health probes.

• Set up routing rules and load balancing algorithms.

• Monitor performance metrics and manage traffic distribution.

The configuration process is straightforward and involves the following basic steps:

1. Create a Load Balancer: Choose the type (public or internal), specify frontend IP, and define backend pools.

2. Define Load Balancing Rules: Set up rules to map frontend IPs to backend resources and ports.

3. Configure Health Probes: Define probes to monitor the health of backend VMs or services.

4. Test and Monitor: Use Azure monitoring tools to track the performance and availability of your application.

Azure Load Balancer is a crucial service for ensuring high availability, fault tolerance, and efficient traffic management in cloud-based environments. By distributing traffic across multiple backend resources, it helps applications remain performant and accessible, even during peak traffic periods or in the event of infrastructure failures.

Whether you’re deploying a public-facing web application or managing internal services in a private network, Azure Load Balancer offers the scalability, flexibility, and reliability you need to manage network traffic efficiently. By utilizing this service, businesses can maintain consistent uptime and offer a seamless user experience, regardless of traffic volume.

As part of a broader cloud strategy, Azure Load Balancer plays a pivotal role in supporting resilient, high-performance applications in the cloud.

Understanding Health Probes in Azure Load Balancer

Health probes are a critical component of Azure Load Balancer that ensure only healthy backend instances receive traffic. The health probe mechanism is designed to monitor the availability and operational status of your virtual machines (VMs) or services that are part of the backend pool. Without effective health probes, traffic could be routed to non-functional instances, leading to poor performance, downtime, or even service failures.

This article delves into the significance of health probes in Azure Load Balancer, explaining their configuration, functionality, and best practices for ensuring optimal performance and high availability in your cloud infrastructure.

What Are Health Probes in Azure Load Balancer?

A health probe is a diagnostic check that periodically tests the health of backend instances (e.g., virtual machines, containerized applications, or services) behind an Azure Load Balancer. The purpose of a health probe is to determine whether the instance is in a healthy state, capable of handling incoming traffic, or if it is unhealthy, requiring the load balancer to stop sending new traffic to that instance.

The health status of a backend instance is determined based on the probe response. If the probe receives a valid, successful response, the instance is considered healthy, and traffic is routed to it. If the probe fails to receive an expected response, the instance is considered unhealthy, and traffic is temporarily diverted away from that instance.

Why Are Health Probes Important?

Health probes are vital for maintaining high availability, performance, and fault tolerance in applications hosted in the cloud. They ensure that:

1. Unhealthy instances don’t receive traffic: If an instance is unhealthy or non-responsive, the health probe prevents traffic from being routed to it. This helps to avoid errors and failures in the application.

2. Minimal downtime: If an instance fails a health probe, traffic is automatically redirected to healthy instances without disrupting ongoing sessions. This ensures that your service continues to run smoothly even if some backend instances fail.

3. Load balancing efficiency: By continuously monitoring the health of backend instances, health probes ensure that the load balancer only distributes traffic to instances that are capable of serving requests. This improves the efficiency of the entire load balancing process.

4. Improved resource utilization: With health probes, Azure Load Balancer can ensure that only active and healthy backend instances are utilized, while unhealthy instances are bypassed until they recover.

Types of Health Probes in Azure Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer allows you to configure different types of health probes, based on the protocol and the specific needs of your application. These probes are flexible and can be customized for various use cases. Here are the main types of health probes supported by Azure Load Balancer:

1. TCP Health Probe

A TCP health probe is used to check whether a specific TCP port on the backend instance is reachable and accepting traffic. The probe initiates a TCP connection to the specified port and waits for a response. If the backend instance responds with a valid acknowledgment, the instance is considered healthy.

• Use Case: Ideal for applications that operate using TCP-based communication (e.g., web servers, databases).

• Protocol: TCP.

• How It Works: The probe attempts to open a TCP connection to a specific port (like port 80 for HTTP traffic or port 443 for HTTPS). If the connection is established successfully, the instance is considered healthy.

2. HTTP Health Probe

An HTTP health probe is used to check the status of web applications or services hosted on the backend instances. This probe sends an HTTP request (e.g., GET) to a specified URL or endpoint on the backend instance. If the backend instance returns a successful HTTP status code (e.g., 200 OK), the instance is considered healthy.

• Use Case: Ideal for web applications or services that respond to HTTP requests.

• Protocol: HTTP or HTTPS.

• How It Works: The health probe sends an HTTP request to a specified path (e.g., /healthcheck or /status) and checks the HTTP response code. If the response code is within the success range (e.g., 200-299), the instance is deemed healthy.

3. HTTPS Health Probe

Similar to the HTTP probe, an HTTPS health probe is used for secure connections (SSL/TLS). This type of probe sends an HTTPS request to a secure endpoint on the backend instance. It checks the HTTPS status code in the same way as an HTTP probe.

• Use Case: For applications running over secure HTTPS protocols.

• Protocol: HTTPS.

• How It Works: The probe sends a request over SSL/TLS to a specific URL and expects a valid response with a success status code.

Configuring Health Probes

Configuring health probes is an essential step during the setup of Azure Load Balancer, as it directly influences how traffic is routed. You can define the following parameters when configuring a health probe:

1. Protocol

Choose between TCP, HTTP, or HTTPS, depending on your application’s needs.

2. Port

Specify the port to which the health probe should be sent. For HTTP or HTTPS probes, this is typically port 80 or 443, while for TCP probes, it could be any port that the backend service is listening to (e.g., port 8080).

3. Path (For HTTP/HTTPS Probes)

If using HTTP or HTTPS, define the URL path (e.g., /healthcheck) that the probe will request. This path should point to an endpoint that provides a clear status response, such as a dedicated health check route.

4. Interval and Timeout

• Interval: The frequency at which health probes are sent. This helps to ensure continuous monitoring of backend resources.

• Timeout: The duration the probe will wait for a response before determining it is unhealthy.

These settings ensure that the health checks are both frequent and reliable while avoiding unnecessary delays.

5. Unhealthy Threshold

Defines the number of consecutive failed health probes required before an instance is considered unhealthy. The default is usually 2 or 3 failures, but this can be adjusted to suit the criticality of your application.

6. Healthy Threshold

Defines the number of consecutive successful probes required before a backend instance is considered healthy again after a failure. This helps to prevent premature routing of traffic to a server that might still be recovering.

How Health Probes Work in Practice

When a health probe is configured, Azure Load Balancer uses it to check the health status of the backend VMs or services at regular intervals. Here’s how it works in practice:

1. Probe Request: The health probe sends a request (depending on the protocol chosen) to the backend instance at specified intervals.

2. Response: If the backend instance responds with a success code (e.g., a successful TCP handshake, a 200 OK HTTP response, or an SSL/TLS handshake for HTTPS), it is deemed healthy.

3. Traffic Routing: If an instance is healthy, Azure Load Balancer will continue to route incoming traffic to it. If an instance fails the health probe, the load balancer stops sending new traffic to it but continues to serve existing connections until they terminate.

4. Recovery: If the failed instance passes health checks again after a certain number of successful probes, the load balancer resumes routing traffic to it.

This process ensures that traffic is only sent to operational, responsive resources, reducing the risk of downtime and improving application reliability.

Best Practices for Configuring Health Probes

To optimize the performance of Azure Load Balancer and ensure maximum availability of your services, follow these best practices:

1. Choose Appropriate Probe Protocols: Select the protocol that matches the nature of your application. For most web applications, HTTP or HTTPS probes are suitable, while for non-web services (like databases), TCP probes might be more appropriate.

2. Use Custom Health Check Endpoints: If using HTTP or HTTPS probes, create a dedicated, lightweight health check endpoint (e.g., /healthcheck) that returns a success status code when the instance is healthy. This helps to prevent unnecessary load on your main application endpoints.

3. Tune Probe Settings: Fine-tune the probe settings (interval, timeout, thresholds) based on the specific requirements of your application. For instance, critical applications might need faster probe intervals and shorter timeouts to detect issues quickly.

4. Monitor Probe Results: Regularly monitor the results of health probes through the Azure portal or Azure Monitor. This will help you detect issues with backend instances before they affect user experience.

5. Automate Recovery: Set up automatic remediation processes to restart backend instances that fail health checks repeatedly, ensuring minimal disruption to services.

In conclusion, health probes are a crucial part of Azure Load Balancer’s ability to route traffic effectively and maintain high availability for your cloud-based applications. By configuring health probes properly, you ensure that only healthy, responsive instances handle incoming requests, which leads to improved application performance, reliability, and fault tolerance.

Whether you’re dealing with web services, APIs, or internal services, health probes help to optimize load balancing, reduce downtime, and provide a seamless experience for end-users. Proper configuration and monitoring of health probes can dramatically improve the resilience and efficiency of your cloud infrastructure.

Key Features of Azure Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer is a highly efficient and scalable tool designed to distribute network traffic across multiple backend resources in Azure environments. It offers several powerful features that enhance the reliability, availability, and performance of applications. Below, we explore the core features of Azure Load Balancer, providing you with a deeper understanding of its capabilities.

1. Protocol Agnostic and Transparent Traffic Distribution

One of the standout features of Azure Load Balancer is its protocol-agnostic nature. Operating at Layer 4 of the OSI model, it does not interact with the application layer, which means it does not inspect or modify the content of network traffic. Instead, it focuses purely on routing traffic based on IP addresses and ports.

• Seamless Connectivity: Since Azure Load Balancer preserves the original IP address of incoming traffic, the backend virtual machines (VMs) are directly contacted using the same IP, ensuring that the application continues to work as expected without interruptions.

• Protocol Support: It works with both TCP and UDP traffic, making it versatile for a wide range of applications, including web servers, databases, and custom applications that require low-latency traffic distribution.

This transparency ensures that Azure Load Balancer can be used with a variety of protocols and applications without the need for significant modifications, providing an ideal solution for both simple and complex workloads.

2. Customizable Load Balancing Rules

Azure Load Balancer offers custom load balancing rules, allowing users to tailor how incoming traffic is distributed across their backend resources. These rules enable the fine-tuning of traffic distribution based on application needs, ensuring that the right resources are utilized for each request.

• Flexible Traffic Distribution: With these rules, you can configure which backend virtual machines (VMs) should handle traffic for specific ports, protocols, or IP addresses. For example, you can configure different rules for HTTP and HTTPS traffic or direct certain traffic to a particular VM based on workload priorities.

• Health Probe Integration: Load balancing rules can be seamlessly integrated with health probes, ensuring that only healthy backend instances receive traffic. If a VM fails a health check, Azure Load Balancer will automatically reroute the traffic to other operational instances without causing downtime for the users.

This customizable approach provides greater control over traffic management and ensures the most efficient resource allocation.

3. Automatic Scaling and Adjustment of Load Balancing Rules

Another significant advantage of Azure Load Balancer is its ability to automatically adjust to changes in the environment. As your backend resources scale up or down—whether manually or via automated scaling—Azure Load Balancer dynamically updates load balancing rules to reflect these changes, ensuring that traffic is always routed to the correct resources.

• Elastic Scaling: Whether you’re adding new virtual machines to your backend pool or removing them as part of a scaling operation, Azure Load Balancer ensures that traffic distribution continues smoothly, without the need for manual intervention.

• Seamless Integration with Autoscaling: When integrated with Azure’s Autoscale feature, the load balancer automatically adjusts to changes in backend infrastructure. This means that as traffic patterns fluctuate, the system can expand or contract based on demand, ensuring that applications are always able to handle peak traffic.

This feature helps maintain performance and availability, even during significant traffic spikes or reductions, without requiring constant manual management.

4. Port Forwarding Capabilities

Azure Load Balancer supports port forwarding, which allows you to forward traffic to backend virtual machines without needing to assign a public IP address to each individual server. This capability is particularly useful for managing multiple backend resources, such as web servers or database servers, behind a single public IP address.

• Cost Efficiency: Instead of allocating a public IP address for each backend machine, which can be costly, you can use port forwarding to handle multiple instances behind a single external IP. This approach saves on public IP consumption while still providing access to the various services behind the load balancer.

• Simplified Management: Port forwarding makes it easier to manage and scale backend servers, as you don’t need to configure each server with a unique public IP address. Instead, traffic is directed through the load balancer and forwarded to the correct internal resource based on port rules.

This feature enhances the scalability of your infrastructure, simplifies the setup of internal and external services, and ensures that your applications are easily manageable.

Azure Load Balancer is a robust and feature-rich service that ensures high availability, reliability, and performance for applications deployed in the Azure cloud. Its key features, such as protocol-agnostic traffic distribution, customizable load balancing rules, automatic scaling, and port forwarding, make it a versatile solution for managing traffic in any cloud environment.

By leveraging these features, businesses can ensure that their applications remain responsive under varying traffic loads while also simplifying management and optimizing resource utilization. Whether you are dealing with web services, databases, or large-scale applications, Azure Load Balancer provides the tools necessary to handle even the most complex traffic management scenarios.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an Azure Load Balancer

Setting up an Azure Load Balancer within your virtual network is a straightforward process that involves several key steps. In this guide, we’ll walk you through each phase of the setup process—from creating the load balancer itself to testing its functionality. By the end, you’ll have a fully functional load balancing solution to efficiently manage traffic for your applications.

Step 1: Create the Azure Load Balancer

The first step in setting up an Azure Load Balancer is creating the actual load balancer resource in your Azure portal.

1. Sign in to Your Azure Subscription
   Begin by signing into the Azure Portal using your Azure credentials. Ensure you are signed into the correct subscription where you intend to deploy the load balancer.

2. Open the Azure Portal
   Once logged in, navigate to the Azure portal home page.

3. Search for “Load Balancer”
   In the search bar at the top, type “Load Balancer” and select the Load Balancer service from the list of results.

4. Click “Add” to Start the Creation Process
   Once you are on the Load Balancer service page, click the Add button to create a new load balancer.

5. Fill in the Required Details
   In the Create Load Balancer wizard, you will need to enter some basic details for your new load balancer:
   • Subscription: Choose the subscription you’re working with.

   • Resource Group: Select an existing resource group or create a new one.

   • Name: Provide a name for your load balancer.

   • Region: Choose the region where you want to deploy the load balancer.

   • Type: Select either Public or Internal depending on whether your load balancer will be accessible from the internet or only within your virtual network.

   • SKU: Select the appropriate SKU for your needs, either Basic or Standard (Standard provides more advanced features and higher availability).

6. Review Your Configuration
   Once all required fields are filled out, review your configuration settings.

7. Click “Create” to Deploy
   After reviewing, click Create to deploy the load balancer. This may take a few minutes to complete.

Step 2: Set Up Your Virtual Network

Before you can configure the backend pool and load balancing rules, you need to create a virtual network (VNet) to host your resources.

1. Navigate to “Create a Resource”
   In the Azure portal, go to Create a resource > Networking > Virtual Network.

2. Choose “Create Virtual Network”
   Select the Create Virtual Network option to start the process.

3. Complete the Basics Tab
   Under the Basics tab, provide the following information:
   • Subscription: Choose the same subscription used for your load balancer.

   • Resource Group: Select the same resource group you used for the load balancer.

   • Name: Enter a name for your virtual network.

   • Region: Ensure that the region matches your load balancer’s region.

4. Configure IP Addresses and Subnets
   In the IP Addresses section, configure the address space and subnets for your virtual network. You may want to create separate subnets for different types of resources (e.g., one for VMs, one for the load balancer).

5. Review and Create
   Once all settings are configured, review the information and click Create to create your virtual network.

Step 3: Configure the Backend Pool

The backend pool is where you define the virtual machines (VMs) or other resources that will receive traffic from the load balancer.

1. Find Your Load Balancer Resource
   In the Azure portal, navigate to your newly created load balancer resource.

2. Navigate to “Backend Pools”
   Under the Settings tab of your load balancer, click on Backend pools.

3. Click “Add” to Create a Backend Pool
   Click Add to define the backend pool. You will need to input the following:
   • Name: Provide a name for the backend pool.

   • Virtual Network: Select the virtual network where your VMs are deployed.

   • Backend Pool Members: You will add backend VMs or instances later.

4. Save the Backend Pool
   After configuring the backend pool, click Save to finalize the setup.

Step 4: Set Up Health Probes

Health probes are used to monitor the status of your backend resources, ensuring that only healthy instances receive traffic.

1. Go to “Health Probes”
   In the load balancer settings, click on Health probes.

2. Click “Add” to Create a Health Probe
   Click Add to configure the health probe. Set the following:
   • Name: Enter a name for the probe (e.g., “HTTP Probe”).

   • Protocol: Choose the protocol for the probe (e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP).

   • Port: Specify the port that the probe should use (e.g., port 80 for HTTP traffic).

   • Path (for HTTP/HTTPS probes): Define the path (e.g., /healthcheck).

   • Interval: Set the frequency at which the probe should check the backend instances.

   • Timeout and Unhealthy Threshold: Adjust these values to fine-tune the probe’s behavior.

3. Save the Health Probe
   After configuring the probe, click Save to apply the changes.

Step 5: Define Load Balancing Rules

Load balancing rules define how traffic is distributed across your backend pool based on the protocol, port, and other criteria.

1. Navigate to “Load Balancing Rules”
   In the load balancer settings, click on Load balancing rules.

2. Click “Add” to Create a Load Balancing Rule
   Click Add to create a new load balancing rule. You’ll need to fill in:
   • Name: Choose a name for the rule.

   • Frontend IP Configuration: Select the public or private IP configuration for the frontend.

   • Protocol: Choose the protocol (TCP, UDP, or HTTP/HTTPS).

   • Port: Specify the port for incoming traffic (e.g., 80 for HTTP).

   • Backend Port: Specify the port on the backend instances to forward traffic to.

   • Backend Pool: Select the backend pool you created earlier.

   • Health Probe: Choose the health probe you created to monitor the health of backend instances.

3. Save the Load Balancing Rule
   Once configured, click Save to create the rule.

Step 6: Create Virtual Machines

Now that your load balancer is configured, you need to create virtual machines (VMs) that will receive the traffic.

1. Create Virtual Machines
   In the Azure portal, navigate to Create a resource > Compute > Virtual Machine. Create two or more VMs within the same availability set (for high availability) and assign them to the virtual network you created earlier.

2. Assign to the Virtual Network
   Make sure to assign the VMs to the same virtual network and subnet as your load balancer.

Step 7: Add VMs to Backend Pool

After creating the VMs, you need to add them to the backend pool of the load balancer.

1. Go to the Virtual Machines Section
   In the Azure portal, navigate to the Virtual Machines section.

2. Add VMs to Backend Pool
   From the backend pool settings, select the VMs you created and add them to the backend pool of your load balancer.

3. Save the Changes
   Click Save to finalize the addition of VMs to the backend pool.

Step 8: Test the Load Balancer

Once everything is set up, it’s time to verify that the load balancer is functioning correctly.

1. Find the Public IP Address
   From the Overview page of your load balancer resource, locate the public IP address assigned to your load balancer.

2. Enter the Public IP in a Browser
   Open a browser and enter the public IP address of the load balancer. If everything is set up correctly, the browser should display a response from one of the backend VMs, confirming that traffic is being successfully routed.

3. Verify Load Balancing
   Refresh the page a few times to ensure that the traffic is distributed between the backend VMs, demonstrating proper load balancing.
   

By following these steps, you will have successfully created and configured an Azure Load Balancer that efficiently distributes traffic across multiple backend resources within your virtual network. With Azure Load Balancer, you ensure high availability, improved application performance, and seamless scaling of your cloud applications.

Final Thoughts

This guide provided a detailed overview of Azure Load Balancer and its setup process to optimize traffic distribution in your Azure virtual network. Its flexibility in configuring health probes and load balancing rules makes it an essential tool for businesses looking to enhance network efficiency.

To further improve your skills, consider exploring Azure training courses that dive deeper into Azure Load Balancer and related networking services.