Book excerpt: With more and more companies moving on-premises applications to the cloud, software and cloud solution architects alike are busy investigating ways to improve load balancing, performance, security, and high availability for workloads. This practical book describes Microsoft Azure's load balancing options and explains how NGINX can contribute to a comprehensive solution. Cloud architects Derek DeJonghe and Arlan Nugara take you through the steps necessary to design a practical solution for your network. Software developers and technical managers will learn how these technologies have a direct impact on application development and architecture. While the examples are specific to Azure, these load balancing concepts and implementations also apply to cloud providers such as AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, and IBM Cloud. Understand application delivery and load balancing--and why they're important Explore Azure's managed load balancing options Learn how to run NGINX OSS and NGINX Plus on Azure Examine similarities and complementing features between Azure-managed solutions and NGINX Use Azure Front Door to define, manage, and monitor global routing for your web traffic Monitor application performance using Azure and NGINX tools and plug-ins Explore security choices using NGINX and Azure Firewall solutions