Challenge 8: Networking - Distribute traffic across global Azure regions for optimal latency and availability using Traffic Manager

Here is what you will learn 🎯

• How to setup Traffic Manager using the Azure portal.
• Setup 2 endpoints located in 2 Azure regions ('North Europe', 'West Europe')
• Configure load balancing based on clients origin geography.

Our final architecture will look like this:

To speed things up you will first deploy the start point and then you will add the external Traffic Manager.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction Traffic Manager
2. Deploy the Starting Point
3. Deploy a Traffic Manager Instance
4. Cleanup

Introduction Traffic Manager

The Traffic Manager (opens new window) uses DNS to load balance traffic to endpoints across Azure regions. It can help you to:

• provide optimal latency by serving clients from the nearest location.
• increase availability as it monitors its endpoints and provides failover.
• redirect traffic to online endpoints while others are in maintenance.

Deploy the Starting Point

Now let's create some VMs using the 'Cloud Shell' in the Azure Portal. When being asked choose PowerShell this time.

[Azure Portal] 
-> Click the 'Cloud Shell' symbol close to your login details on the right upper corner

TIP

📝 The 'Cloud Shell' is an in-browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources. It already has the required SDKs and tools installed to interact with Azure. You can use either Bash or PowerShell.

The first time you use the 'Cloud Shell' you will be asked to setup a storage account e.g. to store files you have uploaded persistently. See the documentation (opens new window) for more details.

[Azure Portal] 
-> Click 'Show advanced settings'

Name	Value
Subscription	%Your subscription%
Cloud Shell Region	West Europe
Resource Group	rg-cloudshell
Storage Account	%some unique value%
File Share	cloudshell

[Azure Portal] 
-> Create storage

Once successful your shell should appear at the bottom of the page:

To setup the starting point, copy & paste the following code into the Cloud Shell:

#Creates some resource groups in different Azure regions
New-AzResourceGroup -Name 'rg-wwwlb-NE' -Location 'North Europe'
New-AzResourceGroup -Name 'rg-wwwlb-WE' -Location 'West Europe'
New-AzResourceGroup -Name 'rg-wwwlb' -Location 'North Europe'

$TemplateParameters = @{
    "adminUser" = [string]'demouser';
    "adminPassword" = [System.Security.SecureString](Read-Host -Prompt "adminUser password please" -AsSecureString);
    "vmNames" = [array]@('vmblue','vmred');
    "vmSize" = [string]'Standard_F2s_v2' # or 'Standard_B2s'
    "DiskSku" = [string]'StandardSSD_LRS'
}

#will create some vms in different Azure regions in parallel
New-AzResourceGroupDeployment -Name 'NE' -TemplateUri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/azuredevcollege/trainingdays/master/day1/challenge-08/challengestart/challengestart.json" -ResourceGroupName 'rg-wwwlb-NE' -TemplateParameterObject $TemplateParameters -AsJob

$TemplateParameters.vmNames = @('vmyellow','vmgreen')
New-AzResourceGroupDeployment -Name 'WE' -TemplateUri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/azuredevcollege/trainingdays/master/day1/challenge-08/challengestart/challengestart.json" -ResourceGroupName 'rg-wwwlb-WE' -TemplateParameterObject $TemplateParameters -AsJob  

#wait until both deployments are done
get-job -State Running | wait-job  

Provide a password when asked.

Deploy a Traffic Manager Instance

Add the Traffic Manager Profile (opens new window) in resource group rg-wwwlb with a routing method based on e.g. performance.

Add 2 endpoints to the traffic manager.

• Endpoint 1

  Name	Value
  Type	Azure endpoint
  Name	Dublin
  Target resource type	Public IP address
  Public IP address	pip-wwwlb-NE

• Endpoint 2

  Name	Value
  Type	Azure endpoint
  Name	Amsterdam
  Target resource type	Public IP address
  Public IP address	pip-wwwlb-WE

Now test by opening the traffic managers DNS name in your browser (you might need to open multiple different browsers to see some change):

vmyellow (Amsterdam)	vmgreen (Amsterdam)	vmblue (Dublin)	vmred (Dublin)

Cleanup

Delete the resource groups rg-wwwlb.... or execute the following commands in the Cloud Shell:

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name 'rg-wwwlb-NE' -Force -AsJob
Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name 'rg-wwwlb-WE' -Force -AsJob
Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name 'rg-wwwlb'    -Force -AsJob

Get-Job -State Running | Wait-Job

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