Configuring Traffic Manager

• Azure endpoints — services running in your Azure subscription (App Services, Cloud Services, Public IPs).
• External endpoints — services outside Azure (on-premises or other clouds), referenced by IP (IPv4/IPv6) or FQDN.
• Nested endpoints — references to other Traffic Manager profiles (useful for hierarchical routing and large-scale deployments).

​

Nested profiles

• The min child endpoints option enforces how many healthy child endpoints must exist before the nested profile accepts traffic. For example, if min child endpoints = 2, the nested profile will only be considered healthy when at least two child endpoints are healthy. If the primary endpoint fails and the nested profile does not meet its minimum healthy child requirement, Traffic Manager will not route traffic to that nested profile.

​

Portal workflow — create and configure a Traffic Manager profile

1. Create a Traffic Manager profile
   • Choose a globally unique name — this forms the FQDN: your-profile-name.trafficmanager.net.
   • Select a routing method:
     • Performance, Weighted, Priority, Geographic, Multivalue, Subnet
     • Notes:
       • Performance/Weighted/Priority/Geographic typically return a single endpoint per DNS response.
       • Multivalue can return multiple healthy endpoints in one response.
       • Subnet maps client source subnets to specific endpoints.
   • Choose the subscription and resource group. (Traffic Manager is a global resource; the region you pick is only for metadata/storage.)
   • Click Create to deploy the profile.
2. Configure probes and endpoint health checks
   • Under the profile’s Configuration tab, set:
     • Protocol: HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP
     • Port: probe port (e.g., 80 or 443)
     • Path: probe path (e.g., /health or /)
     • Optional headers and expected status codes
     • Probe interval, tolerated failures, probe timeout
   • These probe settings tell Traffic Manager how to determine endpoint health.

3. Add endpoints
   • Azure endpoint: choose target resource type (App Service, Cloud Service, Public IP) and select the resource.
   • External endpoint: enter the FQDN or IP address of the non-Azure service.
   • Nested endpoint: reference another Traffic Manager profile.
   • Example portal flow: Add → Azure endpoint → Name (e.g., EUS) → Target App Service in East US → enable health checks. Do not select “Always serve traffic” unless you intentionally want to bypass health probes.

​

Host header behavior and App Service integration

• Browsers set the Host header to the domain requested. For example, when requesting your-profile.trafficmanager.net, the Host header will be your-profile.trafficmanager.net.
• App Service requires the Host header to match one of its configured hostnames (e.g., *.azurewebsites.net or a custom domain you mapped). If it does not match, the App Service will return a 404.

• Use a custom domain (for example, www.kodekloud.com) and map it to Traffic Manager.
  • In DNS: create a CNAME record from www.kodekloud.com to your-profile.trafficmanager.net.
  • In each App Service: add the custom domain so the App Service accepts requests with Host: www.kodekloud.com. This avoids 404s due to host header mismatch.

​

Diagnostics — DNS resolution and request testing

• Observe the CNAME chain returned by DNS for the Traffic Manager profile:

# DNS resolution shows the Traffic Manager CNAME to the selected App Service FQDN
nslookup az700-atm-kodekloud.trafficmanager.net
Server:         192.168.1.1
Address:        192.168.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
az700-atm-kodekloud.trafficmanager.net    canonical name = app-az700-tm-southeastasia.azurewebsites.net.
app-az700-tm-southeastasia.azurewebsites.net    canonical name = waws-prod-sg1-031.sip.azurewebsites.windows.net.
waws-prod-sg1-031.sip.azurewebsites.windows.net  canonical name = waws-prod-sg1-031.southeastasia.cloudapp.azure.com.
Name:    waws-prod-sg1-031.southeastasia.cloudapp.azure.com
Address: 20.188.98.74

• If you change your network location (for example, via VPN), Traffic Manager may resolve to a different App Service according to the routing method:

nslookup az700-atm-kodekloud.trafficmanager.net
Server:         162.252.172.57
Address:        162.252.172.57#53

Non-authoritative answer:
az700-atm-kodekloud.trafficmanager.net    canonical name = app-az700-tm-eastus.azurewebsites.net.
app-az700-tm-eastus.azurewebsites.net     canonical name = waws-prod-blu-047.sip.azurewebsites.windows.net.
waws-prod-blu-047.sip.azurewebsites.windows.net canonical name = waws-prod-blu-047.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com.
Name:    waws-prod-blu-047.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com
Address: 40.117.154.240

• Test an App Service response by setting the Host header to an App Service hostname returned by DNS:

curl "http://az700-atm-kodekloud.trafficmanager.net" -H "Host: app-az700-tm-eastus.azurewebsites.net"

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>Traffic Manager Demo - Southeast Asia</title>
  <style>
    body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center; padding-top: 20vh; }
    .region { font-size: 1.5em; background: rgba(255,255,255,0.2); padding: 10px 20px; border-radius: 25px; display: inline-block; margin-top: 20px; }
    .info { margin-top: 30px; font-size: 1.1em; opacity: 0.9; }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Happy Learning from Southeast Asia</h1>
  <div class="region">Region: Southeast Asia</div>
  <div class="info">
    <p>App Service: app-az700-tm-southeastasia</p>
    <p>Location: southeastasia</p>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

ipconfig /flushdns

​

Quick reference

• Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based routing service for distributing client requests across multiple endpoints.
• Choose the right routing method and endpoint types for your architecture (Azure, external, nested).
• Configure health probes carefully to match your application’s health endpoints.
• Use a custom domain (CNAME to your-profile.trafficmanager.net) and add that custom domain to your App Services for production.
• For testing, use nslookup, curl with a custom Host header, and flush local DNS caches as needed.