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Azure Fundamentals · Lesson

Azure DNS and Load Balancer Essentials

Manage domain name resolution inside Azure with Azure DNS private zones, and distribute incoming traffic across backend VM pools using Azure Load Balancer.

DNS in Azure: The Basics

DNS (Domain Name System) translates human-readable domain names (like api.mycompany.com) into IP addresses that computers use to communicate. Azure provides two DNS services: Azure DNS for hosting public DNS zones (internet-facing domains), and Azure Private DNS for internal name resolution within VNets. Without proper DNS configuration, Azure resources must be referenced by their IP addresses, making architectures brittle — any IP change breaks all dependent configurations. Azure DNS is a highly available, globally distributed service backed by Microsoft's anycast network.

Azure DNS Public Zones

Azure DNS public zones host DNS records for domains that are accessible from the internet. You delegate your domain (registered with a registrar like GoDaddy) to Azure DNS by updating the domain's NS records to point to Azure's name servers. Once delegated, you manage all DNS records (A, CNAME, MX, TXT, etc.) from the Azure portal or CLI instead of a separate DNS provider. Azure DNS public zones provide 100% SLA uptime, sub-second global propagation, and RBAC-controlled access so only authorised team members can modify DNS records.

# Create a DNS zone and add an A record
az network dns zone create \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --name mycompany.com

az network dns record-set a add-record \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --zone-name mycompany.com \
  --record-set-name www \
  --ipv4-address 20.10.20.30

All lessons in this course

  1. Virtual Networks and Subnets
  2. Network Security Groups and Application Security Groups
  3. VNet Peering and Service Endpoints
  4. Azure DNS and Load Balancer Essentials
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