A gateway in Azure, specifically referring to Azure Application Gateway, is a service that allows you to route network traffic. It's particularly useful for managing traffic to web applications.
Azure Application Gateway Explained
Azure Application Gateway acts as a web traffic load balancer, enabling you to manage and distribute incoming traffic to multiple backend servers. It offers various features, including:
- URL-based routing: Azure Application Gateway allows you to route traffic based on specific URL paths. This is useful when you have multiple applications hosted behind the same gateway. By defining routing rules based on path patterns, you can direct requests to the appropriate backend pool. For example, you can route all requests to
/images/*to a specific backend pool that handles image serving. (Reference: 25-Mar-2024)
Key features
Here's a more detailed look at its capabilities:
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Web Application Firewall (WAF): Provides protection against common web vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
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SSL Termination: Handles SSL encryption and decryption, freeing up your backend servers from this processing overhead.
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Session Affinity: Ensures that a user's requests are always directed to the same backend server, maintaining session state.
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Multi-site hosting: Enables hosting multiple websites behind a single Application Gateway, each with its own domain name.
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Autoscaling: Dynamically adjusts the number of gateway instances based on traffic demand.
In summary, Azure Application Gateway is a robust service that simplifies web traffic management, enhances security, and improves application performance in Azure.
