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Step-by-Step Guide: How to setup an Azure load balancer? (PowerShell Guide)

In my previous blog post https://www.rebeladmin.com/2020/01/step-step-guide-setup-azure-load-balancer/, I explained how to setup an Azure load balancer. In that post, I used GUI method to set it up. In this post I am going to show how we can set azure load balancer using Azure PowerShell. 

In this demo, I am going to set up two virtual servers with IIS on it. Then I am going to set up Azure load balancer and load balance the web service access for external connections over TCP port 80. 

To do that I will need to do the following tasks,

1. Setup new resource group

2. Setup two new windows VM

3. Setup IIS with sample web page

4. Create Azure load balancer

5. Create a backend pool

6. Create health probes

7. Create load balancer rule

8. Testing

For the configuration process, I will be using Azure PowerShell. Therefore, please make sure you have Azure PowerShell module installed. More info about it can find under https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/install-az-ps?view=azps-2.6.0

Setup new resource group

1. Launch PowerShell console and connect to Azure using Connect-AzAccount

2. Then create a new resource group using,

New-AzResourceGroup -Name REBELRG1 -Location "East US"

In the above, REBELRG1 is the resource group name and East US is the resource group location.

Setup two new windows VM

1. In this demo, I am going to use two back end servers. Before VM setup, let's go ahead and create a new virtual network. 

$vmsubnet  = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name vmsubnet -AddressPrefix "10.0.2.0/24"

New-AzVirtualNetwork -Name REBELVN1 -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Location "East US" -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16" -Subnet $vmsubnet

In the above, REBELVN1 is the new virtual network name. It has 10.0.0.0/16 address space. It also has a new subnet 10.0.2.0/24 (vmsubnet) for virtual machines.

2. Then I need to create a new availability set. To add back end servers to load balancer, those VMs need to be in the same availability set. 

New-AzAvailabilitySet -Location "East US" -Name "REBELAS1" -ResourceGroupName "REBELRG1" -Sku aligned -PlatformFaultDomainCount 2 -PlatformUpdateDomainCount 2

In above REBELAS1 is the availability group name. More info about scale sets can found here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machine-scale-sets/availability

3. As the next step of the configuration, I am going to create two new virtual machines under REBELRG1 resource group. 

$mylogin = Get-Credential

New-AzVm -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Name "REBELTVM01" -Location "East US" -VirtualNetworkName "REBELVN1" -SubnetName "vmsubnet" -addressprefix 10.0.2.0/24 -PublicIpAddressName "REBELTVM01IP1" -AvailabilitySetName "REBELAS1" -OpenPorts 3389,80 -Image win2019datacenter -Size Standard_D2s_v3 -Credential $mylogin

New-AzVm -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Name "REBELTVM02" -Location "East US" -VirtualNetworkName "REBELVN1" -SubnetName "vmsubnet" -addressprefix 10.0.2.0/24 -PublicIpAddressName "REBELTVM02IP1" -AvailabilitySetName "REBELAS1" -OpenPorts 3389,80 -Image win2019datacenter -Size Standard_D2s_v3 -Credential $mylogin

In the above, I am creating two virtual machines called REBELTVM01 & REBELTVM02. It is running windows server 2019 data center edition. I have specified it using -Image parameter. It also using Standard_D2s_v3 vm size. For networking, It uses REBELVN1 virtual network and subnet 10.0.2.0/24. [Read more…] about Step-by-Step Guide: How to setup an Azure load balancer? (PowerShell Guide)

Step-by-Step Guide: How to setup Azure load balancer?

The role of a load balancer is to improve the availability of services by distributing the load to a pool of back end servers. When it comes to load balancing, Azure has a few different products to choose from. 

• Azure Application Gateway – If you require a load balancer that can provide features such as SSL offloading, reverse proxy and works in the application layer (layer 7), Azure application gateway is the answer.

• Azure Traffic Manager – If you are looking for DNS level load balancing which can distribute traffic to global endpoints, Azure traffic manager will be the product to look at. 

• Azure Load Balancer – Azure load balancer works in layer 4 (transport layer) and can distribute network traffic to endpoints in the same Azure region. It can use to distribute internet traffic as well as internal traffic. In this post, we are going to look into this service in detail. 

Like many other load balancers, Azure load balancer also has the following components. 

• Frontend/Virtual IP address – This is the load balancer IP address that works as a front door to clients. After clients initiate connections to a frontend IP address, the traffic will be distributed to the back-end servers. 

• Server pool – The back-end application servers will be group together in a pool to serve an incoming request from a load balancer. 

• Rules – The incoming traffic will be distributed to the backend servers according to the rules defined in the load balancer.  

• Probes – If a back-end server is down, load balancer needs to know. Then it can stop distributing traffic to the faulty server. The load balancer uses probs to detect the health of the back-end servers. 

• Inbound NAT rules – Inbound NAT rules define how the traffic is forward from the load balancer to the back-end server. 

In this post, I am going to demonstrate how we can load balance a web application using Azure standard load balancer. This demo includes the following tasks,

1. Setup new resource group

2. Setup two new windows VM

3. Setup IIS with sample web page

4. Create Azure load balancer

5. Create a backend pool

6. Create health probes

7. Create load balancer rule

8. Testing

Setup new resource group

Let's go ahead and start the setup process by creating new Azure resource group. 

For the configuration process, I will be using Azure PowerShell. Therefore, please make sure you have an Azure PowerShell module installed. More info about it can find under https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/install-az-ps?view=azps-2.6.0

1. Launch PowerShell console and connect to Azure using Connect-AzAccount

2. Then create a new resource group using,

New-AzResourceGroup -Name REBELRG1 -Location "East US"

In the above, REBELRG1 is the resource group name and East US is the resource group location.

Setup two new windows VM

1. In this demo, I am going to use two back end servers. Before VM setup, let's go ahead and create a new virtual network. 

$vmsubnet  = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name vmsubnet -AddressPrefix "10.0.2.0/24"

New-AzVirtualNetwork -Name REBELVN1 -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Location "East US" -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16" -Subnet $vmsubnet

In the above, REBELVN1 is the new virtual network name. It has 10.0.0.0/16 address space. It also has a new subnet 10.0.2.0/24 (vmsubnet) for virtual machines.

2. Then I need to create a new availability set. To add back end servers to load balancer, those VMs need to be in the same availability set. 

New-AzAvailabilitySet -Location "EastUS" -Name "REBELAS1" -ResourceGroupName "REBELRG1" -Sku aligned -PlatformFaultDomainCount 2 -PlatformUpdateDomainCount 2

In above REBELAS1 is the availability group name. More info about scale sets can found here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machine-scale-sets/availability

3. As the next step of the configuration, I am going to create two new virtual machines under REBELRG1 resource group. 

$mylogin = Get-Credential

New-AzVm -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Name "REBELTVM01" -Location "East US" -VirtualNetworkName "REBELVN1" -SubnetName "vmsubnet" -addressprefix 10.0.2.0/24 -PublicIpAddressName "REBELTVM01IP1" -AvailabilitySetName "REBELAS1" -OpenPorts 3389,80 -Image win2019datacenter -Size Standard_D2s_v3 -Credential $mylogin

New-AzVm -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Name "REBELTVM02" -Location "East US" -VirtualNetworkName "REBELVN1" -SubnetName "vmsubnet" -addressprefix 10.0.2.0/24 -PublicIpAddressName "REBELTVM02IP1" -AvailabilitySetName "REBELAS1" -OpenPorts 3389,80 -Image win2019datacenter -Size Standard_D2s_v3 -Credential $mylogin

In the above, I am creating two virtual machines called REBELTVM01 & REBELTVM02. It is running windows server 2019 data center edition. I have specified it using -Image parameter. It also using Standard_D2s_v3 vm size. For networking, It uses REBELVN1 virtual network and subnet 10.0.2.0/24. [Read more…] about Step-by-Step Guide: How to setup Azure load balancer?

Step-by-Step Guide: How to setup Azure VNET Peering? (PowerShell Guide)

In infrastructure, there are many reasons for allowing traffic between virtual networks such as application requirements, backup/DR requirements, replication requirements and so on. If it is internal networks, we can do this using inter-VLAN routing. If it is between networks in different physical locations, we can do it using VPN & Firewalls. 

If it is Azure, how we can allow traffic between two virtual networks? Well, there are two options to choose from.

1. Azure VPN Gateways

2. Azure VNET Peering 

Azure VPN Gateways

If we are connecting virtual networks over the internet, we have to use VPN gateway option. This is the same for connecting Azure networks with on-premises networks. Also, if the encryption is a requirement, we have to use VPN gateways. 

Azure VNET Peering

Azure VNET peering allows connecting virtual networks seamlessly via Azure backbone infrastructure. This is similar to inter-VLAN routing in on-premises networks. The traffic will not pass via the public internet. It provides low latency, high bandwidth connectivity between virtual networks. VNET peering can use to connect virtual networks in the same Azure region or different Azure regions. 

In this demo, I am going to demonstrate how to connect two virtual networks using Azure VNET peering. 

For the configuration process, I will be using PowerShell. Therefore, please make sure you have an Azure PowerShell module installed. More info about it can find under https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/install-az-ps?view=azps-2.6.0

Create two resource groups and new virtual networks

As the first part of the configuration, I am going to create two new resource groups and two virtual networks.

1. Launch PowerShell console and connect to Azure using Connect-AzAccount

2. Then create two new resource group using,

New-AzResourceGroup -Name REBELRG1 -Location "East US"

New-AzResourceGroup -Name REBELRG2 -Location "East US"

In the above, REBELRG1 & REBELRG2 are the resource group names and East US is the resource group location.

3. The next step is to create a new virtual network under REBELRG1 resource group.

$vmsubnet  = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name vmsubnet -AddressPrefix "10.0.2.0/24"

New-AzVirtualNetwork -Name REBELVN1 -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Location "East US" -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16" -Subnet $vmsubnet

In the above, REBELVN1 is the new virtual network name. It has 10.0.0.0/16 address space. It also has a new subnet 10.0.2.0/24 (vmsubnet) for virtual machines. [Read more…] about Step-by-Step Guide: How to setup Azure VNET Peering? (PowerShell Guide)

Step-by-Step Guide: Crete Azure VM using Managed Image (PowerShell Guide)

Each organization has different standards when it comes to server/desktop provisioning. These standards change based on the nature of the business, compliances, server/desktop role and so on. By keeping the customized OS image simplifies the provisioning process as well as prevent configuration errors. In the local environment, we can do this simply using WDS, System Centre or other 3rd party solutions. But what if need to do the same in Azure environment ?

In this blog post, I am going to demonstrate how to create a managed image in Azure and how to use it to deploy Azure VM. 

For the configuration process, I will be using PowerShell. Therefore, please make sure you have Azure PowerShell module installed. More info about it can find under https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/install-az-ps?view=azps-2.6.0

Let's go ahead and start the configuration process by creating a new resource group. 

1. Launch PowerShell console and connect to Azure using Connect-AzAccount

2. Then create a new resource group using,

New-AzResourceGroup -Name REBELRG -Location "East US"

In the above, REBELRG is the resource group name and East US is the resource group location.

3. The next step is to create a new virtual network.

$vmsubnet  = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name vmsubnet -AddressPrefix "10.0.2.0/24"

New-AzVirtualNetwork -Name REBELVN1 -ResourceGroupName REBELRG -Location "East US" -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16" -Subnet $vmsubnet

In the above, REBELVN1 is the new virtual network name. It has 10.0.0.0/16 address space. It also has a new subnet 10.0.2.0/24 (vmsubnet) for virtual machines. 

[Read more…] about Step-by-Step Guide: Crete Azure VM using Managed Image (PowerShell Guide)

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Move Azure VM to a different Resource Group? (PowerShell Guide)

There are occasions where we need to move Azure Virtual Machines from one resource group to another. In this post, I am going to demonstrate how we can do that. Before start, there are a few things we should look in to.

• Not every resource can move from one resource group to another. More info about it can find under https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/azure-resource-manager/move-support-resources

• If you are looking to move from one region to another, there is a separate process for that. I already wrote an article about it. You can access it using, https://www.rebeladmin.com/2019/11/step-step-guide-move-azure-vm-one-region-another/

• When you move resources, make sure to migrate all dependencies with it. 

• When a virtual machine is moved from one resource group to another, the system creates a new resource ID. If you use this value on scripts or other services, those will need to update after the move. 

• The same method also can use to move resources from one subscription to another. 

In this demo, I am going to create a new VM in one resource group and then move it to another.  

For the configuration process, I will be using PowerShell. Therefore, please make sure you have an Azure PowerShell module installed. More info about it can find under https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/install-az-ps?view=azps-2.6.0

1. Launch PowerShell console and connect to Azure using Connect-AzAccount

2. Then create two new resource group using,

New-AzResourceGroup -Name REBELRG1 -Location "East US"

New-AzResourceGroup -Name REBELRG2 -Location "East US"

In the above, REBELRG1 & REBELRG2 are the resource group names and East US is the resource group location.

3. The next step is to create a new virtual network under REBELRG1 resource group.

$vmsubnet  = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name vmsubnet -AddressPrefix "10.0.2.0/24"

New-AzVirtualNetwork -Name REBELVN1 -ResourceGroupName REBELRG1 -Location "East US" -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16" -Subnet $vmsubnet

In the above, REBELVN1 is the new virtual network name. It has 10.0.0.0/16 address space. It also has a new subnet 10.0.2.0/24 (vmsubnet) for virtual machines. [Read more…] about Step-by-Step Guide: How to Move Azure VM to a different Resource Group? (PowerShell Guide)