Can azure load balancer start/stop VM?

Question

Trying to migrate to windows Azure. Seeing the price of azure i want to start and stop my VM based on the load of the request i receive. My question is: the load balance have the capability to do so or it just distribute the traffic base on rule. If not what can i do?

azure load balance work based on round robin distribution so my server will never have 0 request how can i stop them if i see low traffic? and how i do it after it finish request? I'm currently think of using runbook but i'm not sure is the best way

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 07 '19 at 09:12

0

no, azure load balancer cannot do that, you can use Azure VMSS together with autoscale based on some metric (like CPU load) to do the scaling, but load balancer has no say in this.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machine-scale-sets/virtual-machine-scale-sets-autoscale-overview

answered Jun 07 '19 at 09:12

4c74356b41

69,186
6
100
141

From what i have read autoscaling a VM with DB create problem because the db in the two instance are not syncronized. is it true? – Phoenix5650 Jun 07 '19 at 09:22
this question makes no sense. the answer is - it depends. if you configure it properly - no, this is not the case. if you configure it not properly - this is the case – 4c74356b41 Jun 07 '19 at 09:31
yeah with a scripts\external process. i was thinking of doing a step back and try to achive the same result having the load balance to handle start and stop of n VM but is not good as you point out. Faster route not always the better :) – Phoenix5650 Jun 07 '19 at 09:41

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 07 '19 at 09:14

0

Azure Load balancer load balances based on hash and the load balancing is not equal. Also, using Load balancer to Stop/Start VM is not the ideal way to do it. You can use the metrics of VM such as CPU utilization, Bandwidth utilization to Start/Stop the VM.

answered Jun 07 '19 at 09:14

msrini-MSIT

1,444
1
7
11

yeah but in case of API server if i base on metric isnt there the risk of stop VM before finish such request? – Phoenix5650 Jun 07 '19 at 09:25
Is it a web site which you are running in VM? – msrini-MSIT Jun 07 '19 at 09:26
no i run a VM with api server, my backend and a DB. what i inizially think was to autoscale the VM but i read is not the best thing because the db in the n. instance are not syncronized when it auto scale – Phoenix5650 Jun 07 '19 at 09:32
If you want to stop the VM, first you need to make the probe down, and once that is done, LB will stop forwarding the new connections to the API server. Then you can Stop the VM – msrini-MSIT Jun 07 '19 at 09:42
isn't it better to remove the ip from the pool via powershell? – Phoenix5650 Jun 07 '19 at 09:53
You can still do that but the existing session will be lost. – msrini-MSIT Jun 07 '19 at 09:58

Can azure load balancer start/stop VM?

2 Answers2