Implement an Azure Application Gateway

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Implement an Azure Application Gateway

In this hands-on lab, you are working as an Azure network engineer for The Root, a company that sells plants and flowers online. You’ve been asked to create an Azure Application Gateway as a frontend for two of their web servers that are hosted on virtual machines. You’ll use Azure Application Gateway to provide connectivity to two virtual machines through three different implementation styles, including basic round-robin, multi-site, and routing via URL.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Sep 24, 2025

Duration

1h 0m

Challenge

Create an Application Gateway and Test Basic Functionality
1. Create an Application Gateway with the following parameters (leaving anything not specifically noted at the default setting):
  
  Basics
  
  For Application gateway name, provide a unique name
  
  Set Region to the same region as the VNet
  
  Set Tier to Standard V2
  
  Set Enable autoscaling to No
  
  Set Instance count to 1
  
  Select the existing Virtual network that has been provisioned
  
  Set Subnet to appgateway-subnet (selected automatically, based on the virtual network)
  
  Frontends
  
  Set Frontend IP address type to Public
  
  For Public IP address, add new public IP address and, for its Name, provide a unique name
  
  Backends
  
  Add a backend pool
  
  For Name, provide a unique name
  
  For Backend targets, select the existing VMs as targets:
  
  Set Target type to Virtual machine and set Target to the existing vm1 VM
  
  Set Target type to Virtual machine and set Target to the existing vm2 VM
  
  Configuration
  
  Routing rules > Add a routing rule
  
  For Rule name, provide a unique name
  
  Set Priority to 1
  
  Listener
  
  For Listener name, provide a unique name
  
  Set Frontend IP to Public
  
  Set Protocol to HTTP
  
  Set Port to 80
  
  Set Listener type to Basic
  
  Backend targets
  
  Set Target type to Backend pool
  
  Set Backend target to the existing backend pool of VMs
  
  For Backend settings, select Add new and set the following:
  
  For Backend settings name, provide a unique name
  
  Set Backend protocol to HTTP
  
  Set Backend port to 80
2. Once the Application Gateway has been deployed, connect to it in your browser via its public IP address.
  
  You will be connected to either the vm1 or vm2 VM in the Application Gateway, with traffic balanced between the two VMs in the backend pool.
Challenge

Reconfigure the Application Gateway for Multi-Site Hosting
1. Create two new Backend pools, one for each VM, in the Application Gateway.
  
  E.g., vm1bepool that contains vm1
  
  E.g., vm2bepool that contains vm2
2. Add two new Listeners (e.g., vm1listener and vm2listener) to the Application Gateway.
  
  Set Frontend IP to Public
  
  Set Protocol to HTTP
  
  Set Port to a unique port number to avoid conflict with the other listener
  
  E.g., port 8080 and 8081, respectively
  
  Set Listener type to Multi site
  
  Set Host type to Single
  
  For Host name, provide a unique name
  
  For this lab, you can use something like vm1.theroot.com and vm2.theroot.com for the host name of each of the listeners
3. Create two new routing Rules, one for each VM, in the Application Gateway.
  
  Match your newly created listeners and backend pools to the new routing rules.
4. Test it!
  
  Connect to the user-vm via its public ip address and remote desktop using the credentials on the lab page.
  
  Set the IE Enhanced Security Configuration option to Off for both Administrators and Users to disable the feature.
  
  Open up Notepad as an administrator.
  
  Open the file located at C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
  
  Copy and paste in the public IP address of the Application Gateway and the host name of the VMs created in the listeners.
  
  E.g., 20.237.221.2 vm1.theroot.com
  
  E.g., 20.237.221.2 vm2.theroot.com
  
  Save the file.
  
  Connect to the Application Gateway in Internet Explorer via each VM's host name and port.
  
  E.g., http://vm1.theroot.com:8080
  
  E.g., http://vm2.theroot.com:8081
  
  You will be connected to the correct VM, vm1 or vm2, depending on the host name you entered.
Challenge

Reconfigure the Application Gateway for Routing via URL
1. Delete the basic routing rule to free up the initial listener you created when you first deployed the Application Gateway.
2. Create a new routing rule that sends traffic to vm1's backend pool.
  
  For Listener, choose the original listener created at the beginning of lab
  
  For the Backend targets settings:
  
  Set Backend target to the backend pool you created for vm1 (e.g., vm1bepool)
  
  Set Backend settings to your default HTTP settings
  
  For Path-based routing, click Add multiple targets to create a path-based rule and set the following:
  
  Set Path to /images/*
  
  Set Target name to vm2
  
  Set Backend settings to your default HTTP settings
  
  Set Backend target to the backend pool you created for vm2 (e.g., vm2bepool)
3. Test it!
  
  Connect to the Application Gateway in your browser via its public IP address.
  
  You will be connected to the vm1 VM, no matter how many times you refresh the page.
  
  Connect to the Application Gateway's /images/ directory in your browser via its public IP address.
  
  E.g., 20.237.221.2/images/
  
  You will be connected to the /images/ directory on the vm2 VM.

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