Hands-On Azure Labs: Building Redundant Cloud Solutions

Lab Overview

In this lab, you will validate the LB-West configuration by simulating incoming HTTP requests to ensure proper load distribution among the WEST01 and WEST02 VMs. You’ll confirm that the load balancer’s health probes and inbound rules work as expected, distributing traffic evenly and rerouting requests when a VM is down. This hands-on exercise is critical for guaranteeing your West US environment is prepared to handle production-level web traffic.

Learning Objectives

By completing this lab, you will be able to:

• • Generate HTTP requests to the LB-West frontend IP or domain name.
  • Observe how requests flow to either WEST01 or WEST02.
  • Verify that the load balancer seamlessly handles traffic when one VM is taken offline or fails a health probe.
  • Confirm the network security group rules and NAT gateway settings do not disrupt load balancing functionality.

Exam Relevance

Testing load balancer operations relates to:

• • AZ-104 (Azure Administrator): Demonstrates your capability to manage and troubleshoot load balancing mechanisms.
  • AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect): Reinforces your capacity to design and validate high-availability architectures, ensuring continuous service in single-region failures.