Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Configure Load Balancing and Network Monitoring Syllabus

Configure Load Balancing and Network Monitoring syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Configure Load Balancing and Network Monitoring in Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate, not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Azure Load Balancer

   4 topics

   • Public vs internal load balancers
   • Load balancer SKUs (Basic vs Standard)
   • Backend pools and health probes
   • Load balancing and inbound NAT rules
     • Session persistence and distribution modes
2. 2

   Application Gateway

   4 topics

   • Layer 7 load balancing concepts
   • Listeners, rules, and backend pools
   • Path-based and multi-site routing
   • Web Application Firewall (WAF) integration
3. 3

   Network Monitoring and Troubleshooting

   4 topics

   • Network Watcher capabilities
   • Connection troubleshoot and IP flow verify
   • NSG flow logs and traffic analytics
   • Effective routes and next hop diagnostics

Configure Load Balancing and Network Monitoring flashcards for Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate

22 of 51 cards from the Configure Load Balancing and Network Monitoring deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. What is the difference between a public and an internal Azure Load Balancer?

   A public load balancer has a public frontend IP and balances inbound internet traffic to backend VMs; an internal (private) load balancer has a private frontend IP and balances traffic only within a virtual network or from on-premises (e.g., for internal/multi-tier apps).

2. At which OSI layer does Azure Load Balancer operate, and what protocols does it handle?

   Azure Load Balancer is a Layer 4 (transport) load balancer; it distributes TCP and UDP traffic based on IP address and port, with no awareness of application/HTTP content.

3. At which OSI layer does Azure Application Gateway operate?

   Application Gateway is a Layer 7 (application) load balancer; it makes routing decisions based on HTTP/HTTPS attributes such as URL path, host header, and cookies.

4. Name the two SKUs of Azure Load Balancer.

   Basic and Standard.

5. What is the default availability/SLA difference between Basic and Standard Load Balancer?

   Standard Load Balancer provides a 99.99% SLA; Basic Load Balancer has no SLA.

6. How many instances can a backend pool hold in Basic vs Standard Load Balancer?

   Basic supports up to 300 instances in the backend pool; Standard supports up to 1000 instances.

7. What is the default security posture of a Standard Load Balancer regarding NSGs?

   Standard Load Balancer is secure by default (closed): inbound traffic is blocked unless explicitly allowed by a Network Security Group. Basic Load Balancer is open by default.

8. Which Load Balancer SKU supports Availability Zones?

   Only the Standard SKU supports zone-redundant and zonal frontends; Basic does not support Availability Zones.

9. Are Basic and Standard Load Balancer frontend IP SKUs interchangeable with Public IP SKUs?

   No. A Basic Load Balancer requires a Basic SKU public IP, and a Standard Load Balancer requires a Standard SKU public IP; the SKUs must match.

10. What is a backend pool in Azure Load Balancer?

    A backend pool is the group of backend resources (VMs, VM scale set instances, or IP addresses) that receive distributed traffic from the load balancer.

11. What is the purpose of a health probe in Azure Load Balancer?

    A health probe checks the health of backend instances; the load balancer only sends new flows to instances that report healthy, and stops sending to instances that fail the probe.

12. What probe protocols are supported by Azure Load Balancer health probes?

    TCP, HTTP, and HTTPS (HTTPS only on Standard SKU).

13. For an HTTP/HTTPS health probe, what response indicates a healthy backend?

    An HTTP 200 OK response returned within the probe timeout indicates the instance is healthy.

14. What happens to existing TCP connections when a health probe marks an instance as unhealthy (Standard LB)?

    On Standard Load Balancer, new connections are not sent to the unhealthy instance, but existing established TCP connections continue (default behavior); with 'all probes down' configuration, all connections including UDP can be reset.

15. What does a load balancing rule define in Azure Load Balancer?

    A load balancing rule maps a frontend IP and port to a backend pool and backend port, associating it with a health probe to distribute incoming traffic across the pool.

16. What is an inbound NAT rule in Azure Load Balancer?

    An inbound NAT rule forwards traffic from a specific frontend IP/port to a specific port on a single backend instance (e.g., RDP/SSH to one VM), rather than distributing across the pool.

17. What is the key difference between a load balancing rule and an inbound NAT rule?

    A load balancing rule distributes traffic across all healthy instances in the backend pool, while an inbound NAT rule directs traffic to one specific backend instance/port.

18. What is the default load distribution mode (session persistence) of Azure Load Balancer?

    Five-tuple hash: source IP, source port, destination IP, destination port, and protocol; this distributes flows across instances without session affinity.

19. What session persistence options does Azure Load Balancer support besides the default five-tuple?

    Source IP affinity (two-tuple: source IP + destination IP) and source IP + protocol affinity (three-tuple).

20. What is the purpose of HA Ports in Standard Load Balancer?

    HA Ports is a load balancing rule that balances ALL TCP and UDP flows on all ports simultaneously (port 0), commonly used for network virtual appliances (NVAs) in high availability scenarios.

21. What are the three main components of an Application Gateway request flow?

    Listeners (receive incoming requests), rules (define how requests are routed), and backend pools (the targets that serve the request).

22. What is a listener in Application Gateway?

    A listener is a logical entity that checks for incoming connection requests using a configured protocol, port, host, and IP address; it determines whether a request is accepted.

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