M08-Unit 3 Monitor a load balancer resource using Azure Monitor

Exercise scenario

In this exercise, you will create an internal load balancer for the fictional Contoso Ltd organization. Then you will create a Log Analytics workspace, and use Azure Monitor Insights to view information about your internal load balancer. You will view the Functional Dependency View, then view detailed metrics for the load balancer resource, and view resource health information for the load balancer. Finally, you will configure the load balancer’s diagnostic settings to send metrics to the Log Analytics workspace you created.

The diagram below illustrates the environment you will be deploying in this exercise.

Job skills

In this exercise, you will:

• Task 1: Create the virtual network
• Task 2: Create the load balancer
• Task 3: Create a backend pool
• Task 4: Create a health probe
• Task 5: Create a load balancer rule
• Task 6: Create backend servers
• Task 7: Add VMs to the backend pool
• Task 8: Test the load balancer
• Task 9: Create a Log Analytics Workspace
• Task 10: Use Functional Dependency View
• Task 11: View detailed metrics
• Task 12: View resource health
• Task 13: Configure diagnostic settings

Interactive lab simulations

Note: The lab simulations that were previously provided have been retired.

Estimated time: 55 minutes

Task 1: Create the virtual network

In this section, you will create a virtual network and a subnet.

1. Log in to the Azure portal.

2. On the Azure portal home page, search Virtual Network and select virtual network under services.

3. Select + Create.

   

4. On the Basics tab, use the information in the table below to create the virtual network.

   Setting	Value
   Subscription	Select your subscription
   Resource group	Select Create new Name: IntLB-RG
   Name	IntLB-VNet
   Region	(US) West US

5. Select Next : IP Addresses.

6. On the IP Addresses tab, in the IPv4 address space box, enter 10.1.0.0/16.

7. Above Subnet name, select + Add subnet.

8. On the Add subnet pane, provide a subnet name of myBackendSubnet, and a subnet address range of 10.1.0.0/24.

9. Select Add.

10. Select Next : Security.

11. Under BastionHost select Enable, then enter the information from the table below.

    Setting	Value
    Bastion name	myBastionHost
    AzureBastionSubnet address space	10.1.1.0/24
    Public IP address	Select Create new Name: myBastionIP

12. Select Review + create.

13. Select Create.

Task 2: Create the load balancer

In this section, you will create an internal Standard SKU load balancer. The reason we are creating a Standard SKU load balancer here in the exercise, instead of a Basic SKU load balance, is for later exercises that require a Standard SKU version of the load balancer.

1. On the Azure home page, in the search bar, enter Load Balancer

2. Select Create Load Balancer.

3. On the Basics tab, use the information in the table below to create the load balancer.

   Setting	Value
   Basics tab
   Subscription	Select your subscription
   Resource group	IntLB-RG
   Name	myIntLoadBalancer
   Region	(US) West US
   SKU	Standard
   Type	Internal
   Frontend IP configuration tab	+ Add a frontend IP configuration
   Name	LoadBalancerFrontEnd
   Virtual network	IntLB-VNet
   Subnet	myBackendSubnet
   IP address assignment	Dynamic

4. Select Review + create.

5. Select Create.

Task 3: Create a backend pool

The backend address pool contains the IP addresses of the virtual NICs connected to the load balancer.

1. On the Azure portal home page, select All resources, then select on myIntLoadBalancer from the resources list.

2. Under Settings, select Backend pools, and then select Add.

3. On the Add backend pool page, enter the information from the table below.

   Setting	Value
   Name	myBackendPool
   Virtual network	IntLB-VNet
   Backend Pool Configuration	NIC

4. Select Add.

   

Task 4: Create a health probe

The load balancer monitors the status of your app with a health probe. The health probe adds or removes VMs from the load balancer based on their response to health checks. Here you will create a health probe to monitor the health of the VMs.

1. From the Backend pools page of your load balancer, under Settings, select Health probes, then select Add.

2. On the Add health probe page, enter the information from the table below.

   Setting	Value
   Name	myHealthProbe
   Protocol	HTTP
   Port	80
   Path	/
   Interval	15

3. Select Add.

   

Task 5: Create a load balancer rule

A load balancer rule is used to define how traffic is distributed to the VMs. You define the frontend IP configuration for the incoming traffic and the backend IP pool to receive the traffic. The source and destination port are defined in the rule. Here you will create a load balancer rule.

1. From the Backend pools page of your load balancer, under Settings, select Load balancing rules, then select Add.

2. On the Add load balancing rule page, enter the information from the table below.

   Setting	Value
   Name	myHTTPRule
   IP Version	IPv4
   Frontend IP address	LoadBalancerFrontEnd
   Protocol	TCP
   Port	80
   Backend port	80
   Backend pool	myBackendPool
   Health probe	myHealthProbe
   Session persistence	None
   Idle timeout (minutes)	15
   Floating IP	Disabled

3. Select Add.

   

Task 6: Create backend servers

In this section, you will create three VMs for the backend pool of the load balancer, add the VMs to the backend pool, and then install IIS on the three VMs to test the load balancer.

1. In the Azure portal, select the Cloud Shell icon (top right). If necessary, configure the shell.
   • Select PowerShell.
   • Select No Storage Account required and your Subscription, then select Apply.
   • Wait for the terminal to create and a prompt to be displayed.

2. On the toolbar of the Cloud Shell pane, select the Manage files icon, in the drop-down menu, select Upload and upload the following files azuredeploy.json and azuredeploy.parameters.json into the Cloud Shell home directory.

   Note: If you are working in your own subscription the template files are available in the GitHub lab repository.

3. Deploy the following ARM templates to create the virtual network, subnets, and VMs needed for this exercise:

   Note: You will be prompted to provide an Admin password.

   $RGName = "IntLB-RG"
   
   New-AzResourceGroupDeployment -ResourceGroupName $RGName -TemplateFile azuredeploy.json -TemplateParameterFile azuredeploy.parameters.json
   

   Note: This will take several minutes to deploy.

Task 7: Add VMs to the backend pool

1. On the Azure portal home page, select All resources, then select on myIntLoadBalancer from the resources list.

2. Under Settings, select Backend pools., and then select myBackendPool.

3. On the Associated to box, select Virtual machines.

4. Under Virtual machines, select Add.

5. Select the checkboxes for all 3 VMs (myVM1, myVM2, and myVM3), then select Add.

6. On the myBackendPool page, select Save.

   

Task 8: Test the load balancer

In this section, you will create a test VM, and then test the load balancer.

Create test VM

Note: You may find slight differences between the instructions and the Azure portal interface, but the core concept is the same.

1. On the Azure home page, using the global search enter Virtual Machines and select virtual machines under services.

2. Select + Create; + Virtual machine, on the Basics tab, use the information in the table below to create the first VM.

   Setting	Value
   Subscription	Select your subscription
   Resource group	IntLB-RG
   Virtual machine name	myTestVM
   Region	(US) West US
   Availability options	No infrastructure redundancy required
   Security type	Standard
   Image	See all images –> Datacenter for Windows Server 2019
   Size	Standard_DS2_v3 - 2 vcpu, 8 GiB memory
   Username	TestUser
   Password	Provide a secure password
   Confirm password	Provide a secure password

3. Select Next : Disks, then select Next : Networking.

4. On the Networking tab, use the information in the table below to configure networking settings.

   Setting	Value
   Virtual network	IntLB-VNet
   Subnet	myBackendSubnet
   Public IP	Change to None
   NIC network security group	Advanced
   Configure network security group	Select the existing myNSG
   Load balancing	None (or unchecked)

5. Select Review + create.

6. Select Create.

7. Wait for this last VM to be deployed before moving forward with the next task.

Connect to the test VM to test the load balancer

1. On the Azure portal home page, select All resources, then select on myIntLoadBalancer from the resources list.

2. On the Overview page, make a note of the Private IP address, or copy it to the clipboard. Note: you may have to select See more to see the Private IP address.

3. Select Home, then on the Azure portal home page, select All resources, then select on the myTestVM virtual machine that you just created.

4. On the Overview page, select Connect, then Bastion.

5. Select Use Bastion.

6. In the Username box, enter TestUser and in the Password box, enter the password you provided during deployment, then select Connect.

7. The myTestVM window will open in another browser tab.

8. If a Networks pane appears, select Yes.

9. Select the Internet Explorer icon in the task bar to open the web browser.

10. Select OK on the Set up Internet Explorer 11 dialog box.

11. Enter (or paste) the Private IP address (e.g. 10.1.0.4) from the previous step into the address bar of the browser and press Enter.

12. The default web home page of the IIS Web server is displayed in the browser window. One of the three virtual machines in the backend pool will respond.

13. If you select the refresh button in the browser a few times, you will see that the response comes randomly from the different VMs in the backend pool of the internal load balancer.

    

Task 9:: Create a Log Analytics Workspace

1. On the Azure portal home page, select All services, then in the search box at the top of the page enter Log Analytics, and select Log Analytics workspaces from the filtered list.

   

2. Select Create.

3. On the Create Log Analytics workspace page, on the Basics tab, use the information in the table below to create the workspace.

   Setting	Value
   Subscription	Select your subscription
   Resource group	IntLB-RG
   Name	myLAworkspace
   Region	West US

4. Select Review + Create, then select Create.

   

Task 10: Use Functional Dependency View

1. On the Azure portal home page, select All resources, then in the resources list, select myIntLoadBalancer.

   

2. Under Monitoring, select Insights.

3. In the top right corner of the page, select the X to close the Metrics pane for now. You will open it again shortly.

4. This page view is known as Functional Dependency View, and in this view, you get a useful interactive diagram, which illustrates the topology of the selected network resource - in this case a load balancer. For Standard Load Balancers, your backend pool resources are color-coded with Health Probe status indicating the current availability of your backend pool to serve traffic.

5. Use the Zoom In (+) and Zoom Out (-) buttons in the bottom right corner of the page, to zoom in and out of the topology diagram (alternatively you can use your mouse wheel if you have one). You can also drag the topology diagram around the page to move it.

6. Hover over the LoadBalancerFrontEnd component in the diagram, then hover over the myBackendPool component.

7. Notice that you can use the links in these pop-up windows to view information about these load balancer components and open their respective Azure portal blades.

8. To download a .SVG file copy of the topology diagram, select Download topology, and save the file in your Downloads folder.

9. In the top right corner, select View metrics to reopen the metrics pane on the right-hand side of the screen.

10. The Metrics pane provides a quick view of some key metrics for this load balancer resource, in the form of bar and line charts.

    

Task 11: View detailed metrics

1. To view more comprehensive metrics for this network resource, select View detailed metrics.

2. This opens a large full Metrics page in the Azure Network Insights platform. The first tab you land on is the Overview tab, which shows the availability status of the load balancer and overall Data Throughput and Frontend and Backend Availability for each of the Frontend IPs attached to your Load Balancer. These metrics indicate whether the Frontend IP is responsive and the compute instances in your Backend Pool are individually responsive to inbound connections.

3. Select the Frontend & Backend Availability tab and scroll down the page to see the Health Probe Status charts. If you see values that are lower than 100 for these items, it indicates an outage of some kind on those resources.

4. Select the Data Throughput tab and scroll down the page to see the other data throughput charts.

5. Hover over some of the data points in the charts, and you will see that the values change to show the exact value at that point in time.

6. Select the Flow Distribution tab and scroll down the page to see the charts under the VM Flow Creation and Network Traffic section.

   

Task 12: View resource health

1. To view the health of your Load Balancer resources, on the Azure portal home page, select All services, then select Monitor.

2. On the Monitor>Overview page, in the left-hand menu select Service Health.

3. On the Service Health>Service issues page, in the left-hand menu select Resource Health.

4. On the Service Health>Resource health page, in the Resource type drop-down list, scroll down the list and select Load balancer.

   

5. Then select the name of your load balancer from the list.

6. The Resource health page will identify any major availability issues with your load balancer resource. If there are any events under the Health History section, you can expand the health event to see more detail about the event. You can even save the detail about the event as a PDF file for later review and for reporting.

   

Task 13: Configure diagnostic settings

1. On the Azure portal home page, select Resource groups, then select the IntLB-RG resource group from the list.

2. On the IntLB-RG page, select the name of the myIntLoadBalancer load balancer resource in the list of resources.

3. Under Monitoring, select Diagnostic settings, then select Add diagnostic setting.

   

4. On the Diagnostic setting page, in the name box, enter myLBDiagnostics.

5. Select the AllMetrics checkbox, then select the Send to Log Analytics workspace checkbox.

6. Select your subscription from the list, then select myLAworkspace (westus) from the workspace drop-down list.

7. Select Save.

   

Clean up resources

Note: Remember to remove any newly created Azure resources that you no longer use. Removing unused resources ensures you will not see unexpected charges.

1. On the Azure portal, open the PowerShell session within the Cloud Shell pane.

2. Delete all resource groups you created throughout the labs of this module by running the following command:

   Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name 'IntLB-RG' -Force -AsJob
   

Note: The command executes asynchronously (as determined by the -AsJob parameter), so while you will be able to run another PowerShell command immediately afterwards within the same PowerShell session, it will take a few minutes before the resource groups are actually removed.

Extend your learning with Copilot

Copilot can assist you in learning how to use the Azure scripting tools. Copilot can also assist in areas not covered in the lab or where you need more information. Open an Edge browser and choose Copilot (top right) or navigate to copilot.microsoft.com. Take a few minutes to try these prompts.

• Summarize the Azure tools that are available for monitoring virtual networks.
• What Azure Network Watcher monitoring tools are available?

Learn more with self-paced training

• Introduction to Azure Monitor. In this module, you learn how to use Azure Monitor to provide insights into your Azure resource performance and operations.
• Monitor and troubleshoot your end-to-end Azure network infrastructure by using network monitoring tools. In this module, you learn to use Azure Network Watcher tools, diagnostics, and logs to help find and fix networking issues in your Azure infrastructure.

Key takeaways

Congratulations on completing the lab. Here are the main takeaways for this lab.

• Azure Monitor provides features and tools for collecting, managing, and analyzing IT data from all of your Azure, other cloud, and on-premises resources.
• Metrics are quantitative measurements that show snapshots of application or resource performance. Metrics are typically numeric values that you can measure over time.
• Logs are textual records of events, actions, and messages that occur in a resource or application.
• Azure Monitor Insights, visualizations, and dashboards can consume and transmit monitoring information about your applications.
• Alerts notify you of critical conditions and can take corrective action. Alert rules can be based on metric or log data.+