In this section, you create a virtual network with a resource subnet, an Azure Bastion subnet, and an Azure Bastion host.
Important
Hourly pricing starts from the moment that Bastion is deployed, regardless of outbound data usage. For more information, see Pricing and SKUs. If you're deploying Bastion as part of a tutorial or test, we recommend that you delete this resource after you finish using it.
In the portal, search for and select Virtual networks.
On the Virtual networks page, select + Create.
On the Basics tab of Create virtual network, enter or select the following information:
Setting
Value
Project details
Subscription
Select your subscription.
Resource group
Select load-balancer-rg from the dropdown or Create new if it doesn't exist. Enter load-balancer-rg in Name. Select OK.
Instance details
Name
Enter lb-vnet.
Region
Select (US) East US.
Select the Security tab or Next button at the bottom of the page.
Under Azure Bastion, enter or select the following information:
Setting
Value
Azure Bastion
Enable Azure Bastion
Select checkbox.
Azure Bastion host name
Enter lb-bastion.
Azure Bastion public IP address
Select Create new. Enter lb-bastion-ip in Name. Select OK.
Select the IP addresses tab, or Next at the bottom of the page.
On Create virtual network page, enter or select the following information:
Setting
Value
Add IPv4 address space
IPv4 address space
Enter 10.0.0.0/16 (65,356 addresses).
Subnets
Select the default subnet link to edit.
Edit subnet
Subnet purpose
Leave the default Default.
Name
Enter backend-subnet.
Starting address
Enter 10.0.0.0.
Subnet size
Enter /24(256 addresses).
Security
NAT Gateway
Select lb-nat-gateway.
Select Save.
Select Review + create at the bottom of the screen, and when validation passes, select Create.
In Add a public IP address, enter lb-public-IP for Name.
Select Zone-redundant in Availability zone.
Note
In regions with Availability Zones, you have the option to select no zone (default option), a specific zone, or zone-redundant. The choice will depend on your specific domain failure requirements. In regions without Availability Zones, this field won't appear. For more information on availability zones, see Availability zones overview.
Select OK.
Select Add.
Select the Next: Backend pools> button at the bottom of the page.
In the Backend pools tab, select + Add a backend pool.
Enter lb-backend-pool for Name in Add backend pool.
Select lb-VNet in Virtual network.
Select IP Address for Backend Pool Configuration and select Save.
Select the Inbound rules tab, or select the Next: Inbound rules button at the bottom of the page.
In Load balancing rule in the Inbound rules tab, select + Add a load balancing rule.
In Add load balancing rule, enter or select the following information:
Setting
Value
Name
Enter lb-HTTP-rule
IP Version
Select IPv4 or IPv6 depending on your requirements.
Frontend IP address
Select lb-frontend-IP.
Backend pool
Select lb-backend-pool.
Protocol
Select TCP.
Port
Enter 80.
Backend port
Enter 80.
Health probe
Select Create new. In Name, enter lb-health-probe. Select HTTP in Protocol. Leave the rest of the defaults, and select Save.
Leave the default of (Recommended) Use outbound rules to provide backend pool members access to the internet.
Select Save.
Select the blue Review + create button at the bottom of the page.
Select Create.
Note
In this example we created a NAT gateway to provide outbound Internet access. The outbound rules tab in the configuration is bypassed as it's optional and isn't needed with the NAT gateway. For more information on Azure NAT gateway, see What is Azure Virtual Network NAT?
For more information about outbound connections in Azure, see Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) for outbound connections.
Create virtual machines
In this section, you create two VMs (lb-vm1 and lb-VM2) in a single zone (Zone 1).
These VMs are added to the backend pool of the load balancer that was created earlier.
In the search box at the top of the portal, enter Virtual machine. Select Virtual machines in the search results.
In Virtual machines, select + Create > Azure virtual machine.
In Create a virtual machine, enter or select the following values in the Basics tab:
Setting
Value
Project Details
Subscription
Select your Azure subscription
Resource Group
Select load-balancer-rg
Instance details
Virtual machine name
Enter lb-VM1
Region
Select ((US) East US)
Availability Options
Select Availability zones
Availability zone
Select Zone 1
Security type
Select Standard.
Image
Select Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition - Gen2
Azure Spot instance
Leave the default of unchecked.
Size
Choose VM size or take default setting
Administrator account
Username
Enter a username
Password
Enter a password
Confirm password
Reenter password
Inbound port rules
Public inbound ports
Select None
Select the Networking tab, or select Next: Disks, then Next: Networking.
In the Networking tab, select or enter the following information:
Setting
Value
Network interface
Virtual network
Select lb-vnet
Subnet
Select backend-subnet
Public IP
Select None.
NIC network security group
Select Advanced
Configure network security group
Skip this setting until the rest of the settings are completed. Complete after Select a backend pool.
Delete NIC when VM is deleted
Leave the default of unselected.
Accelerated networking
Leave the default of selected.
Load balancing
Load balancing options
Load-balancing options
Select Azure load balancer
Select a load balancer
Select load-balancer
Select a backend pool
Select lb-backend-pool
Configure network security group
Select Create new. In the Create network security group, enter lb-NSG in Name. Under Inbound rules, select +Add an inbound rule. In Service, select HTTP. Under Priority, enter 100. In Name, enter lb-NSG-Rule Select Add Select OK
Select Review + create.
Review the settings, and then select Create.
Follow the steps 1 through 7 to create another VM with the following values and all the other settings the same as lb-VM1:
Setting
VM 2
Name
lb-VM2
Availability zone
Zone 1
Network security group
Select the existing lb-NSG
Note
Azure provides a default outbound access IP for VMs that either aren't assigned a public IP address or are in the backend pool of an internal basic Azure load balancer. The default outbound access IP mechanism provides an outbound IP address that isn't configurable.
The default outbound access IP is disabled when one of the following events happens:
A public IP address is assigned to the VM.
The VM is placed in the backend pool of a standard load balancer, with or without outbound rules.
Select All services in the left-hand menu, select All resources, and then from the resources list, select lb-VM1 that is located in the load-balancer-rg resource group.
On the Overview page, select Connect, then Bastion.
Select Use Bastion.
Enter the username and password entered during VM creation.
Select Connect.
On the server desktop, navigate to Windows Administrative Tools > Windows PowerShell.
In the PowerShell Window, run the following commands to:
Install the IIS server
Remove the default iisstart.htm file
Add a new iisstart.htm file that displays the name of the VM:
PowerShell
# Install IIS server roleInstall-WindowsFeature -nameWeb-Server -IncludeManagementTools# Remove default htm fileRemove-Item C:\inetpub\wwwroot\iisstart.htm
# Add a new htm file that displays server nameAdd-Content -Path"C:\inetpub\wwwroot\iisstart.htm" -Value $("Hello World from " + $env:computername)
Close the Bastion session with lb-VM1.
Repeat steps to install IIS and the updated iisstart.htm file on lb-VM2.
Test the load balancer
In the search box at the top of the page, enter Load balancer. Select Load balancers in the search results.
Click the load balancer you created, load-balancer. On the Frontend IP configuration page for your load balancer, locate the public IP address.
Copy the public IP address, and then paste it into the address bar of your browser. The custom VM page of the IIS Web server is displayed in the browser.
Clean up resources
When no longer needed, delete the resource group, load balancer, and all related resources. To do so, select the resource group load-balancer-rg that contains the resources and then select Delete.
Next steps
Advance to the next article to learn how to load balance VMs across availability zones:
Learn to create an internal Azure Load Balancer and test it with two virtual machines. Learn how to configure traffic rules and health probes to distribute traffic across multiple VMs.
Learn how to use Azure Load Balancer to efficiently distribute traffic and improve application scalability. Explore quickstarts, tutorials, and how-to guides for deploying load balancers in virtual machines, cloud resources, and cross-premises networks.