Microsoftdocs Agent Skills

Included skill

Azure Load Balancer

Expert knowledge for Azure Load Balancer development including troubleshooting, best practices, decision making, architecture & design patterns, limits & quotas, security, configuration, integrations & coding patterns, and deployment. Use when configuring LB rules/probes, SNAT/outbound, IMDS/metrics APIs, VM scale sets HA, or DDoS/NSG security, and other Azure Load Balancer related development tasks. Not for Azure Application Gateway (use azure-application-gateway), Azure Front Door (use azure-front-door), Azure Traffic Manager (use azure-traffic-manager), Azure NAT Gateway (use azure-nat-gateway).

Source: /skills/azure-load-balancer/SKILL.md

Azure Load Balancer Skill

This skill provides expert guidance for Azure Load Balancer. Covers troubleshooting, best practices, decision making, architecture & design patterns, limits & quotas, security, configuration, integrations & coding patterns, and deployment. It combines local quick-reference content with remote documentation fetching capabilities.

How to Use This Skill

IMPORTANT for Agent: Use the Category Index below to locate relevant sections. For categories with line ranges (e.g., L35-L120), use read_file with the specified lines. For categories with file links (e.g., [security.md](security.md)), use read_file on the linked reference file

IMPORTANT for Agent: If metadata.generated_at is more than 3 months old, suggest the user pull the latest version from the repository. If mcp_microsoftdocs tools are not available, suggest the user install it: Installation Guide

This skill requires network access to fetch documentation content:

  • Preferred: Use mcp_microsoftdocs:microsoft_docs_fetch with query string from=learn-agent-skill. Returns Markdown.
  • Fallback: Use fetch_webpage with query string from=learn-agent-skill&accept=text/markdown. Returns Markdown.

Category Index

Category Lines Description
Troubleshooting L37-L44 Diagnosing Azure Load Balancer issues using health event logs, metrics, alerts, and tests of public frontend reachability to troubleshoot connectivity and availability problems.
Best Practices L45-L50 Guidance on designing and deploying Azure Load Balancer, plus using Standard Load Balancer with VM scale sets for high availability, scaling, and configuration best practices.
Decision Making L51-L58 Guidance on choosing Load Balancer SKUs, upgrading Basic to Standard, migrating AWS NLB workloads, and moving from inbound NAT rules v1 to v2.
Architecture & Design Patterns L59-L63 Design patterns for traffic distribution and session affinity, plus guidance for configuring outbound internet connectivity and SNAT behavior with Azure Load Balancer.
Limits & Quotas L64-L72 Limits, behaviors, and tuning for Load Balancer health probes, SNAT port usage, TCP idle timeouts, and TCP reset handling, plus related FAQs and configuration guidance.
Security L73-L78 Securing Azure Load Balancer with NSGs and other controls, and enabling/configuring Azure DDoS Protection to defend against volumetric and protocol attacks.
Configuration L79-L94 Configuring Azure Load Balancer behavior: backends/frontends (including cross-subscription), rules, health probes, traffic distribution, outbound/SNAT, monitoring, and IPv6/DHCPv6 settings.
Integrations & Coding Patterns L95-L101 Code samples and patterns for probing health, reading load balancer/VM metadata via IMDS, and retrieving Azure Load Balancer metrics using CLI and REST APIs
Deployment L102-L106 Guides for deploying Load Balancers: replicating configurations across regions and automating upgrades from Basic to Standard using PowerShell.

Troubleshooting

Topic URL
Interpret Azure Load Balancer health event logs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-health-event-logs
Monitor and alert on Azure Load Balancer health events https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-monitor-alert-health-event-logs
Use metrics, alerts, and health to diagnose Azure Load Balancer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-standard-diagnostics
Test Azure Public Load Balancer frontend reachability https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-test-frontend-reachability

Best Practices

Topic URL
Apply Azure Load Balancer deployment best practices https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-best-practices
Use Azure Standard Load Balancer with virtual machine scale sets https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-standard-virtual-machine-scale-sets

Decision Making

Topic URL
Plan and execute upgrade from Basic to Standard Load Balancer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-basic-upgrade-guidance
Decide and migrate from inbound NAT rules v1 to v2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-nat-pool-migration
Migrate AWS Network Load Balancer workloads to Azure Load Balancer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/network-load-balancing-aws-to-azure-how-to
Choose the right Azure Load Balancer SKU https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/skus

Architecture & Design Patterns

Topic URL
Choose Azure Load Balancer distribution modes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/distribution-mode-concepts

Limits & Quotas

Topic URL
Configure and tune Azure Load Balancer health probes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-custom-probe-overview
Azure Load Balancer FAQs with limits and behaviors https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-faqs
Understand SNAT port limits for Azure Load Balancer outbound https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-outbound-connections
Configure Azure Load Balancer TCP idle timeouts https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-tcp-idle-timeout
Understand Azure Load Balancer TCP reset behavior https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-tcp-reset

Security

Topic URL
Apply security controls to Azure Load Balancer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/secure-load-balancer
Protect Azure Load Balancer with Azure DDoS Protection https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/tutorial-protect-load-balancer-ddos

Configuration

Topic URL
Configure Azure Load Balancer backend pools by IP https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/backend-pool-management
Configure cross-subscription backends for Azure Load Balancer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/cross-subscription-how-to-attach-backend
Configure Azure Load Balancer traffic distribution mode https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-distribution-mode
Configure DHCPv6 on Linux VMs for Azure IPv6 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-ipv6-for-linux
Configure Azure Load Balancer portal settings https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/manage
Manage Azure Load Balancer backend admin state https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/manage-admin-state-how-to
Configure and manage Azure Load Balancer inbound NAT rules https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/manage-inbound-nat-rules
Configure Azure Load Balancer health probe settings in portal https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/manage-probes-how-to
Configure Azure Load Balancer rule types and properties https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/manage-rules-how-to
Configure monitoring for Azure Load Balancer with Azure Monitor https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/monitor-load-balancer
Reference monitoring metrics and logs for Azure Load Balancer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/monitor-load-balancer-reference
Configure outbound rules for Azure Load Balancer SNAT https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/outbound-rules

Integrations & Coding Patterns

Topic URL
Implement custom HTTP/HTTPS health probes with Python for Azure Load Balancer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/create-custom-http-health-probe-howto
Use IMDS to retrieve Azure Load Balancer metadata https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/howto-load-balancer-imds
Query Azure Load Balancer metrics via REST API https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-query-metrics-rest-api

Deployment

Topic URL
Replicate Azure Load Balancer configuration across regions https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/move-across-regions-azure-load-balancer
Automate Basic-to-Standard Load Balancer upgrade with PowerShell https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/upgrade-basic-standard-with-powershell