Hey everyone! I'm looking for some guidance on configuring a load balancer in front of my current SFTP server setup. Right now, my production SFTP server is located in the US Central region, and I'm planning a disaster recovery (DR) site in Azure West. My goal is to place a load balancer in front of the SFTP server and eventually set up another SFTP server in Azure West that can handle traffic through the load balancer. I have a few questions:
1. Can I still use the existing public IP and DNS record from GoDaddy for my SFTP server, or do I need to get a new public IP for the load balancer?
2. Is it okay to have different types of SFTP servers? For example, my current server is a VM in Azure, and I'd like the one in Azure West to be an Azure Storage SFTP. Do they need to be running the same application?
3. Regarding the traffic management, can the load balancer operate in an active/passive mode, or will it just distribute traffic randomly?
This is my first time setting up a load balancer in Azure, so I'd appreciate any insights and tips you have!
2 Answers
1. It depends on your current setup. If your SFTP server uses a VM with a public IP, you can just move that IP to the load balancer. However, if you're using Azure's Storage SFTP, you’ll need to get a new public IP for the LB.
2. Technically, SFTP is SFTP, so the load balancer only cares about the backend IP and port. Just ensure if you’re using Azure Storage SFTP that you still set up your custom domain appropriately.
3. Unfortunately, Azure's load balancer doesn’t support an active/passive configuration. You can set up a health probe to monitor the availability of your servers, but it won't operate in a truly active/passive way.
Just to add on that last point, there’s a way to mimic an active/passive setup with Azure LB, but it’s not straightforward and needs some extra configuration to handle it effectively.
Got it! So, if I create the LB and only have my current SFTP server behind it, it should just act as it does now, right? Just routing to that single server until I can add more?