How to Create a Basic Load Balancer by using the Azure portal

Load balancing provides a higher level of availability and scale by spreading incoming requests across virtual machines (VMs). You can use the Azure portal to create a load balancer and balance traffic among VMs. This quickstart shows you how to create and configure a load balancer, back-end servers, and network resources at the Basic pricing tier.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

To do the tasks in this quickstart, sign in to the Azure portal.

Create a Basic Load Balancer

First, create a public Basic Load Balancer by using the portal. The name and public IP address you create are automatically configured as the load balancer's front end.

1. On the top left-hand side of the screen, click Create a resource > Networking > Load Balancer.
2. In the Basics tab of the Create load balancer page, enter or select the following information, accept the defaults for the remaining settings, and then select Review + create:

   Setting	Value
   Subscription	Select your subscription.
   Resource group	Select Create new and type MyResourceGroupLB in the text box.
   Name	myLoadBalancer
   Region	Select West Europe.
   Type	Select Public.
   SKU	Select Basic.
   Public IP address	Select Create new.
   Public IP address name	MyPublicIP
   Assignment	Static

3. In the Review + create tab, click Create.

Create back-end servers

Next, create a virtual network and two virtual machines for the back-end pool of your Basic load balancer.

Create a virtual network

1. On the upper-left side of the portal, select Create a resource > Networking > Virtual network.
2. In the Create virtual network pane, type or select these values:
   • Name: Type MyVnet.
   • ResourceGroup: Drop down Select existing and select MyResourceGroupLB.
   • Subnet > Name: Type MyBackendSubnet.
3. Select Create.
   

Create virtual machines

1. On the upper-left side of the portal, select Create a resource > Compute > Windows Server 2016 Datacenter.
2. In Create a virtual machine, type or select the following values in the Basics tab:
   • Subscription > Resource Group: Drop down and select MyResourceGroupLB.
   • Instance Details > Virtual machine name: Type MyVM1.
   • Instance Details > Availability Options:
     1. Drop down and select Availability set.
     2. Select Create new, type MyAvailabilitySet, and select OK.
3. Select the Networking tab, or select Next: Disks, then Next: Networking.
   Make sure the following are selected:
   • Virtual network: MyVnet
   • Subnet: MyBackendSubnet
   • Public IP: MyVM1-ip
   To create a new network security group (NSG), a type of firewall, under Network Security Group, select Advanced.
   1. In the Configure network security group field, select Create new.
   2. Type MyNetworkSecurityGroup, and select OK.
4. Select the Management tab, or select Next > Management. Under Monitoring, set Boot diagnostics to Off.
5. Select Review + create.
6. Review the settings, and then select Create.
7. Follow the steps to create a second VM named MyVM2, with a Public IP address of MyVM2-ip, and all the other settings the same as MyVM1.

Create NSG rules for the VMs

In this section, you create network security group (NSG) rules for the VMs, to allow inbound internet (HTTP) and remote desktop (RDP) connections.

1. Select All resources on the left menu. From the resource list, select MyNetworkSecurityGroup in the MyResourceGroupLB resource group.
2. Under Settings, select Inbound security rules, and then select Add.
3. In the Add inbound security rule dialog, for the HTTP rule, type or select the following:
   • Source: Select Service Tag.
   • Source service tag: Select Internet.
   • Destination port ranges: Type 80.
   • Protocol: Select TCP.
   • Action: Select Allow.
   • Priority: Type 100.
   • Name: Type MyHTTPRule.
   • Description: Type Allow HTTP.
4. Select Add.
   
5. Repeat the steps for the inbound RDP rule, with the following differing values:
   • Destination port ranges: Type 3389.
   • Priority: Type 200.
   • Name: Type MyRDPRule.
   • Description: Type Allow RDP.

Create resources for the load balancer

In this section, you configure load balancer settings for a back-end address pool, a health probe, and a load balancer rule.

Create a backend address pool

To distribute traffic to the VMs, the load balancer uses a back-end address pool. The back-end address pool contains the IP addresses of the virtual network interfaces (NICs) that are connected to the load balancer.

To create a back-end address pool that includes VM1 and VM2:

1. Select All resources on the left menu, and then select MyLoadBalancer from the resource list.
2. Under Settings, select Backend pools, and then select Add.
3. On the Add a backend pool page, type or select the following values:
   • Name: Type MyBackEndPool.
   • Associated to: Drop down and select Availability set.
   • Availability set: Select MyAvailabilitySet.
4. Select Add a target network IP configuration.
   1. Add each virtual machine (MyVM1 and MyVM2) that you created to the back-end pool.
   2. After you add each machine, drop down and select its Network IP configuration.
5. Select OK.
   
6. On the Backend pools page, expand MyBackendPool and make sure both VM1 and VM2 are listed.

Create a health probe

To allow the load balancer to monitor VM status, you use a health probe. The health probe dynamically adds or removes VMs from the load balancer rotation based on their response to health checks.

To create a health probe to monitor the health of the VMs:

1. Select All resources on the left menu, and then select MyLoadBalancer from the resource list.
2. Under Settings, select Health probes, and then select Add.
3. On the Add a health probe page, type or select the following values:
   • Name: Type MyHealthProbe.
   • Protocol: Drop down and select HTTP.
   • Port: Type 80.
   • Path: Accept / for the default URI. You can replace this value with any other URI.
   • Interval: Type 15. Interval is the number of seconds between probe attempts.
   • Unhealthy threshold: Type 2. This value is the number of consecutive probe failures that occur before a VM is considered unhealthy.
4. Select OK.
   

Create a load balancer rule

A load balancer rule defines how traffic is distributed to the VMs. The rule defines the front-end IP configuration for incoming traffic, the back-end IP pool to receive the traffic, and the required source and destination ports.

The load balancer rule named MyLoadBalancerRule listens to port 80 in the front-end LoadBalancerFrontEnd. The rule sends network traffic to the back-end address pool MyBackEndPool, also on port 80.

To create the load balancer rule:

1. Select All resources on the left menu, and then select MyLoadBalancer from the resource list.
2. Under Settings, select Load balancing rules, and then select Add.
3. On the Add load balancing rule page, type or select the following values:
   • Name: Type MyLoadBalancerRule.
   • Frontend IP address: Type LoadBalancerFrontend.
   • Protocol: Select TCP.
   • Port: Type 80.
   • Backend port: Type 80.
   • Backend pool: Select MyBackendPool.
   • Health probe: Select MyHealthProbe.
4. Select OK.
   

Test the load balancer

You'll use the public IP address to test the load balancer on the VMs.

In the portal, on the Overview page for MyLoadBalancer, find its public IP address under Public IP Address. Hover over the address and select the Copy icon to copy it.

Install IIS on the VMs

Install Internet Information Services (IIS) on the virtual machines to help test the load balancer.

To remote desktop (RDP) into the VM:

1. In the portal, select All resources on the left menu. From the resource list, select MyVM1 in the MyResourceGroupLB resource group.
2. On the Overview page, select Connect, and then select Download RDP file.
3. Open the RDP file you downloaded, and select Connect.
4. On the Windows Security screen, select More choices and then Use a different account.
   Enter username and password and select OK.
5. Respond Yes to any certificate prompt.
   The VM desktop opens in a new window.

To install IIS

1. Select All services in the left-hand menu, select All resources, and then from the resources list, select myVM1 that is located in the myResourceGroupSLB resource group.
2. On the Overview page, select Connect to RDP into the VM.
3. Log into the VM with the credentials that you provided during the creation of this VM. This launches a remote desktop session with virtual machine - myVM1.
4. On the server desktop, navigate to Windows Administrative Tools>Windows PowerShell.
5. In the PowerShell Window, run the following commands to install the IIS server, remove the default iisstart.htm file, and then add a new iisstart.htm file that displays the name of the VM:
   Azure PowerShell:-

   
    # install IIS server role
    Install-WindowsFeature -name Web-Server -IncludeManagementTools
   
    # remove default htm file
    remove-item  C:\inetpub\wwwroot\iisstart.htm
   
    # Add a new htm file that displays server name
    Add-Content -Path "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\iisstart.htm" -Value $("Hello World from " + $env:computername)
   

6. Close the RDP session with myVM1.
7. Repeat steps 1 to 6 to install IIS and the updated iisstart.htm file on myVM2.
8. Repeat the steps for the virtual machine MyVM2, except set the destination server to MyVM2.

Test the load balancer

Open a browser and paste your load balancer's public IP address into the browser's address bar. The IIS web server default page should appear in the browser.

To see the load balancer distribute traffic across both VMs running your app, you can force-refresh your web browser.

Clean up resources

To delete the load balancer and all related resources when you no longer need them, open the MyResourceGroupLB resource group and select Delete resource group.