Configure a Virtual Machine Scale Set with an existing Azure Standard Load Balancer

Article
2024-09-09

In this article, you'll learn how to configure a Virtual Machine Scale Set with an existing Azure Load Balancer. With an existing virtual network and standard sku load balancer, you can deploy a Virtual Machine Scale Set with a few clicks in the Azure portal, or with a few lines of code in the Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell using the tabs below.

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription.
An existing standard sku load balancer in the subscription where the Virtual Machine Scale Set will be deployed.
An Azure Virtual Network for the Virtual Machine Scale Set.

Deploy Virtual Machine Scale Set with existing load balancer

In this section, you'll create a Virtual Machine Scale Set in the Azure portal with an existing Azure load balancer.

Note

The following steps assume a virtual network named myVNet and an Azure load balancer named myLoadBalancer has been previously deployed.

On the top left-hand side of the screen, select Create a resource and search for Virtual Machine Scale Set in the marketplace search.
Select Virtual machine scale set and Select Create.

In Create a virtual machine scale set, enter, or select this information in the Basics tab:

Setting	Value
Project details
Subscription	Select your Azure subscription
Resource Group	Select Create new, enter myResourceGroup, then select OK, or select an existing resource group.
Scale set details
Virtual machine scale set name	Enter myVMSS
Region	Select China North 3
Availability zone	Select None
Instance details
Image	Select Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS
Size	Leave at default
Administrator account
Authentication type	Select Password
Username	Enter your admin username
Password	Enter your admin password
Confirm password	Reenter your admin password

Screenshot shows the Create virtual machine scale set Basics tab.

Select the Networking tab.

Enter or select this information in the Networking tab:

Setting	Value
Virtual Network Configuration
Virtual network	Select myVNet or your existing virtual network.
Load balancing
Use a load balancer	Select Yes
Load balancing settings
Load balancing options	Select Azure load balancer
Select a load balancer	Select myLoadBalancer or your existing load balancer
Select a backend pool	Select myBackendPool or your existing backend pool.

Screenshot shows the Create virtual machine scale set Networking tab.

Select the Management tab.
In the Management tab, set Boot diagnostics to Off.
Select the blue Review + create button.
Review the settings and select the Create button.

Prerequisites

An Azure account with an active subscription. Create a trial subscription.
You need an existing standard sku load balancer in the subscription where the Virtual Machine Scale Set will be deployed.
You need an Azure Virtual Network for the Virtual Machine Scale Set.

If you prefer to run CLI reference commands locally, install the Azure CLI. If you're running on Windows or macOS, consider running Azure CLI in a Docker container. For more information, see How to run the Azure CLI in a Docker container.
- If you're using a local installation, sign in to the Azure CLI by using the az login command. To finish the authentication process, follow the steps displayed in your terminal. For other sign-in options, see Sign in with the Azure CLI.
- When you're prompted, install the Azure CLI extension on first use. For more information about extensions, see Use extensions with the Azure CLI.
- Run az version to find the version and dependent libraries that are installed. To upgrade to the latest version, run az upgrade.

This article requires version 2.0.28 or later of the Azure CLI. If using Azure Poweshell Shell, the latest version is already installed.

Deploy a Virtual Machine Scale Set with existing load balancer

Deploy a Virtual Machine Scale Set with az vmss create. Replace the values in brackets with the names of the resources in your configuration.

az vmss create \
    --resource-group <resource-group> \
    --name <vmss-name>\
    --image <your-image> \
    --admin-username <admin-username> \
    --generate-ssh-keys  \
    --upgrade-policy-mode Automatic \
    --instance-count 3 \
    --vnet-name <virtual-network-name> \
    --subnet <subnet-name> \
    --lb <load-balancer-name> \
    --backend-pool-name <backend-pool-name>

The below example deploys a Virtual Machine Scale Set with:

Virtual Machine Scale Set named myVMSS
Azure Load Balancer named myLoadBalancer
Load balancer backend pool named myBackendPool
Azure Virtual Network named myVnet
Subnet named mySubnet
Resource group named myResourceGroup
Ubuntu Server image for the Virtual Machine Scale Set

az vmss create \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --name myVMSS \
    --image Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-LTS:latest \
    --admin-username adminuser \
    --generate-ssh-keys \
    --upgrade-policy-mode Automatic \
    --instance-count 3 \
    --vnet-name myVnet\
    --subnet mySubnet \
    --lb myLoadBalancer \
    --backend-pool-name myBackendPool

Note

After the scale set has been created, the backend port cannot be modified for a load balancing rule used by a health probe of the load balancer. To change the port, you can remove the health probe by updating the Azure virtual machine scale set, update the port and then configure the health probe again.

Prerequisites

An Azure account with an active subscription. Create a trial subscription.
An existing resource group for all resources.
An existing standard sku load balancer in the subscription where the Virtual Machine Scale Set will be deployed.
An Azure Virtual Network for the Virtual Machine Scale Set.

Note

Before you can use Azure CLI in Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet, please run az cloud set -n AzureChinaCloud first to change the cloud environment. If you want to switch back to Azure Public Cloud, run az cloud set -n AzureCloud again.

Note

We recommend that you use the Azure Az PowerShell module to interact with Azure. To get started, see Install Azure PowerShell. To learn how to migrate to the Az PowerShell module, see Migrate Azure PowerShell from AzureRM to Az.

Sign into Azure with Connect-AzAccount -Environment AzureChinaCloud

Connect-AzAccount -Environment AzureChinaCloud

Deploy a Virtual Machine Scale Set with existing load balancer

Deploy a Virtual Machine Scale Set with New-AzVMss. Replace the values in brackets with the names of the resources in your configuration.


$rsg = <resource-group>
$loc = <location>
$vms = <vm-scale-set-name>
$vnt = <virtual-network>
$sub = <subnet-name>
$lbn = <load-balancer-name>
$pol = <upgrade-policy-mode>
$img = <image-name>
$bep = <backend-pool-name>

$lb = Get-AzLoadBalancer -ResourceGroupName $rsg -Name $lbn

New-AzVmss -ResourceGroupName $rsg -Location $loc -VMScaleSetName $vms -VirtualNetworkName $vnt -SubnetName $sub -LoadBalancerName $lb -UpgradePolicyMode $pol

The below example deploys a Virtual Machine Scale Set with the following values:

Virtual Machine Scale Set named myVMSS
Azure Load Balancer named myLoadBalancer
Load balancer backend pool named myBackendPool
Azure Virtual Network named myVnet
Subnet named mySubnet
Resource group named myResourceGroup


$rsg = "myResourceGroup"
$loc = "China East 2"
$vms = "myVMSS"
$vnt = "myVnet"
$sub = "mySubnet"
$pol = "Automatic"
$lbn = "myLoadBalancer"
$bep = "myBackendPool"

$lb = Get-AzLoadBalancer -ResourceGroupName $rsg -Name $lbn

New-AzVmss -ResourceGroupName $rsg -Location $loc -VMScaleSetName $vms -VirtualNetworkName $vnt -SubnetName $sub -LoadBalancerName $lb -UpgradePolicyMode $pol -BackendPoolName $bep

Note

Next steps

In this article, you deployed a Virtual Machine Scale Set with an existing Azure Load Balancer. To learn more about Virtual Machine Scale Sets and load balancer, see:

Configure a Virtual Machine Scale Set with an existing Azure Standard Load Balancer

Prerequisites

Sign in to the Azure portal

Deploy Virtual Machine Scale Set with existing load balancer

Additional resources