Geo-Load Balancing with the Azure Traffic Manager

When you deploy a typical web role in Azure, each instance is automatically load balanced at the datacenter level. The Azure Fabric Controller manages upgrades and maintenance of those instances to ensure uptime. But what about if you want to have a web solution closer to where your users are? Or automatically direct traffic to a location in the event of an outage? This is where the Azure Traffic Manager comes in, and I have to say, it is so easy to set up – it boggles my mind that in today’s day and age, individuals can prop up large, redundant, durable, distributed applications in seconds that would rival the infrastructure of the largest websites.