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Difficulty: MediumApplication Load Balancing and Delivery

An organization is migrating a legacy high-throughput inventory application to Azure. The application uses a custom TCP-based protocol on port 8080. The architecture requires deploying three virtual machines (VMs) in a single Azure region, distributed across multiple Availability Zones to ensure zone redundancy. The VMs are currently associated with Basic SKU Public IP addresses. You need to design a load balancing solution to distribute the client TCP traffic to the VMs.

Which design action should you recommend?

  1. A
    Deploy a Standard Load Balancer to route traffic to the virtual machines using their existing Basic SKU public IP addresses.
  2. Reassociate the virtual machines with Standard SKU public IP addresses and deploy a Standard Load Balancer.Answer
  3. C
    Deploy Azure Traffic Manager to route client TCP traffic directly to the virtual machines.
  4. D
    Deploy a Basic Load Balancer to load balance the TCP traffic across the virtual machines in all Availability Zones.

Answer

Reassociate the virtual machines with Standard SKU public IP addresses and deploy a Standard Load Balancer.
To support virtual machines distributed across multiple Availability Zones, a Standard Load Balancer is required because a Basic Load Balancer does not support zone-redundant backend pools. Additionally, Azure requires SKU consistency, meaning virtual machines in a Standard Load Balancer's backend pool must be associated with Standard SKU public IP addresses rather than Basic SKU public IP addresses.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the protocol and zonal requirements.
The application uses a custom TCP protocol on port 8080, and the VMs are distributed across multiple Availability Zones.
Layer 7 load balancers like Azure Application Gateway or Azure Front Door are not suitable for non-HTTP/S custom TCP protocols. An Azure Load Balancer (Layer 4) is required.
2
Evaluate the required Load Balancer SKU for Availability Zones.
A Standard Load Balancer is selected because the Basic Load Balancer does not support backend pools containing VMs in multiple Availability Zones.
Only the Standard SKU Azure Load Balancer supports zone-redundant backend configurations.
3
Resolve IP address SKU mismatch constraints.
The VMs must have their Basic SKU Public IP addresses changed to Standard SKU.
Azure enforces strict SKU alignment; a Standard Load Balancer cannot target backend network interfaces associated with Basic SKU Public IP resources.

Key Concept

Azure Load Balancer SKU compatibility and Availability Zone support constraints.
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Topics

Application Load Balancing and Delivery

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