Choosing the Right Load Balancer and Application Delivery Controller as a Service for Azure

The default ADCaaS tools offered by your public cloud provider—for example, Azure Load Balancer and Azure Application Gateway in the Microsoft Azure cloud—provide the easiest and most straightforward deployment option. These tools are tightly integrated with the cloud ecosystem, covering many general-purpose application delivery use cases with minimal configuration effort.

• Ease of use: Default ADCaaS tools are simple to deploy, operate, and manage within your public cloud environment.
• Unified management: As a part of the cloud provider’s ecosystem, these tools come with consistent management interfaces and dashboards across the entire public cloud platform.
• Standard features: Basic load balancing, threat protection, and integration with other Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) native services address key needs out-of-the-box.

Default ADCaaS tools are ideal for small- to medium-scale, more static deployments, where standard functionality is sufficient, and there is no need for deeper levels of customization or advanced application and API connectivity features.

When the default ADCaaS falls short—whether due to lack of advanced customization, scaling limitations, or insufficient visibility—third-party native cloud ADCaaS alternatives from cloud marketplaces become the next viable option. An example is F5 NGINXaaS for Azure, which is designed to deliver enhanced performance, availability, protection, and visibility at scale, improving overall user experience without adding extra complexity and operational toil.

When evaluating a third-party ADCaaS in Azure, consider the following capabilities:

• Load balancing algorithms: The most advanced ADCaaS tools support intelligent load-based traffic distribution, for example, least time like in F5 NGINXaaS for Azure to ensure the fastest application response time and optimized resource utilization.
• Zero downtime re-configurations: Elastic, dynamic auto-scaling of backend services might cause connection timeouts and errors if ADCaaS is not capable of handling the topology changes non-disruptively. With support for dynamic configuration updates, F5 NGINXaaS for Azure ensures smooth and consistent user experience during request spikes without traffic flow interruptions.
• Observability: The default tools provide sufficient visibility into app health and performance in many cases. However, sometimes detailed, real-time visibility is needed to quickly identify and resolve issues, ideally even before they start impacting your customers. For example, F5 NGINXaaS for Azure offers monitoring and reporting for over 200 granular, real-time metrics for faster troubleshooting and better insights into application health and performance.
• Customization and programmability: One of the critical aspects of an advanced ADCaaS is to unlock custom scenarios and use cases through configuration flexibility and fully programmable data planes. F5 NGINXaaS for Azure helps achieve this goal by providing broader control over the data plane configuration and built-in NGINX JavaScript. This enables almost unlimited flexibility in implementing the highly customized capabilities tailored to the unique needs and requirements of an organization.
• Integrated functionality: The ability to implement both a Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancer in one tool, strengthened by the integrated advanced application and API protection, helps reduce complexity and tool sprawl. The integrated Layer 4 and Layer 7 functionality of F5 NGINXaaS for Azure combined with F5’s industry-leading web application firewall protection helps consolidate technology and optimizes operational costs. In addition, tight integration with core Azure services such as Azure Entra, Azure Key Vault, and Azure Monitor ensures smooth and consistent application delivery experience across the entire Azure environment.

Available from the cloud marketplace, F5 NGINXaaS for Azure is best suited for deployment scenarios requiring enhanced performance, scalability, and visibility without the complexity of managing additional infrastructure. It is suitable for medium- to large-scale, dynamic environments hosting many cloud-native, distributed applications.

For platform and cloud architects, selecting the right ADCaaS requires balancing ease of use, flexibility, scalability, and operational complexity. Begin with the default tools provided by the Azure cloud platform for simplicity and faster deployment. If advanced features, better scalability, or improved visibility are necessary, explore third-party native ADCaaS options from the marketplace, such as F5 NGINXaaS for Azure.

When “as a Service” solutions are not capable of meeting your needs, deployable ADCs in VMs or containers offer greater control, albeit at the cost of increased operational overhead. They are suited particularly well for complex multicloud architectures where consistency and centralized management across multiple environments are key requirements.

The decision ultimately depends on your team’s priorities and capacity. Whether prioritizing simplicity or control, the right ADCaaS can empower architects to build resilient, high-performing, and future-proof application delivery platforms.

To start building modern, resilient cloud application delivery architectures, explore F5 NGINXaaS for Azure in the Azure Marketplace.