Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect ExpertDesign business continuity solutionsHard
A global software company provides a SaaS application hosted on Azure. The application's backend consists of stateless web APIs running on Azure App Services deployed in 'East US' and 'West Europe'. The company wants to ensure that users are always routed to the application instance with the lowest network latency, and if one region experiences an outage, traffic automatically fails over to the other region. Which Azure service should be used?
- AAzure Application Gateway
- BAzure Front Door
- CAzure Load Balancer
- DAzure Traffic Manager
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Azure Traffic Manager
Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic load balancer that allows you to distribute traffic to your public-facing applications across global Azure regions. It supports 'Performance' routing, which routes users to the endpoint with the lowest network latency, and automatically handles failover to healthy endpoints during an outage.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Azure Application Gateway is a regional Layer 7 load balancer and WAF, not suitable for global traffic distribution across regions.
- B. Azure Front Door also provides global load balancing and latency-based routing, but it operates at Layer 7 (HTTP/S) and includes WAF, which isn't explicitly requested. Traffic Manager is a simpler, DNS-based L4-L7 solution for this specific scenario.
- C. Azure Load Balancer is a regional Layer 4 load balancer, not suitable for global traffic distribution across regions.
Azure Traffic Manager
An Azure DNS-based traffic load balancer that distributes traffic optimally to services across global Azure regions, based on selected routing methods, to ensure high availability and responsiveness.
- DNS-based global routing
- Supports various routing methods (Performance, Priority, Geographic, Weighted, Multivalue, Subnet)
- Provides automatic failover to healthy endpoints
- Operates at the DNS level (Layer 4-7)
Memory trick: Traffic Manager: The global GPS for your app, always finds the fastest route.