Common Misconceptions About Load-Balanced Azure VMs
Explore the essentials of deploying a scalable and resilient web server in Azure for Udacity’s ‘Deploying a Web Server in Azure’ project. This guide covers Availability Sets, Load Balancers, and autoscaling with VM Scale Sets, providing a foundation for Azure infrastructure management.
© 2023 The Turing Taco Tales / Oscar Mauricio Forero Carrillo
Originally published at The Turing Taco Tales on November 14, 2023.
Overview
In my work as a Udacity reviewer for the “Deploying a Web Server in Azure” project, I’ve noticed a common misunderstanding. Many students add an Availability Set to its Terraform configuration and omit connecting the VMs to the Load Balancer. While an Availability Set offers redundancy within a data center, it does not handle traffic distribution, a task performed by a Load Balancer.
Students may be attempting to achieve auto-scaling by adding the Availability Set, but this project doesn’t cover it. I understand the importance of autoscaling; however, it’s achieved through resources like Azure Scale Sets, not Availability Sets.
This article aims to clarify these critical distinctions to understand Azure infrastructure better.
