Basic load balancer vs Standard load balancer?

Audi911 0

Hello experts,

Quick question which I can only find the answer to upgrade but not downgrade.

I have a scenario where I have 1 AVD (there used to be two but now there is only one, which I'm not sure if this is why I am facing this issue)

I am seeing in my billing that I have a standard load balancer which is about $30CDN / Month.

So 2 questions

Can a basic load balancer do the trick (I believe a basic one is free)
How do I go back from a standard load balancer to a basic one? I am only showing it's very easy to upgrade but downgrading doesn't seem to be an option?

Any ideas?

Thank you!

KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-11-30T04:14:45.94+00:00
@Audi911

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform. Thank you for reaching out & I hope you are doing well.

Please go through the below before considering to downgrade your Load Balancer SKU

On September 30, 2025, Basic Load Balancer will be retired. For more information, see the official announcement. If you are currently using Basic Load Balancer, make sure to upgrade to Standard Load Balancer prior to the retirement date.

I am afraid we cannot confirm if Basic Load Balancer would be sufficient or not without looking at your architecture and requirements.

You mentioned you have one AVD behind Standard Load Balancer.

However, this does not explain your architecture.

NOTE: Standalone Azure VM and AVD are different concepts, and AFAIK, we can only add a VM to the backend pool of a Load Balancer.

Can you please be more specific.

Now, to compare : Azure Load Balancer SKUs comparison.

Wrt downgrade,

Yes, there are no automated methods to this from Azure.

You have to create a new Basic Load Balancer (the respective basic IP will be a new one and you cannot use the existing Standard IP in case of Public Load Balancer)

And add your VM to the backend pool - which will require a downtime.

Cheers,

Kapil.
Audi911 0 Reputation points

2023-11-30T06:15:21.84+00:00

Hello,

I apologize I should have probably been clearer in my above post.

I have an Azure virtual desktop. My clients connect with the remote desktop app which they are given permission to connect to the machine in that host pool. Currently, there is 1 virtual machine in this host pool. I am unsure if I require a standard load balancer in order for this to work or a basic load balancer will do the trick.

Currently, the way the users will connect is they start the remote desktop application (not MSTSC in Windows, but the Remote Desktop App we get from the App store and connect to the virtual machine. They put in their Azure credentials and connect.

What's unclear to me is do I need a standard load balancer in this kind of setup or can a basic load balancer work?

I ask this question because the standard load balancer is $30CAD. I am just curious to know if this is a required cost in such a setup?

Thanks!
KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-11-30T06:38:48.44+00:00
@Audi911

Thanks for explaining your architecture.

However, I am still not clear as why you have a Load Balancer configured.

From the AVD Documentation, I don't see any mention of Load Balancer being used.

From what I could see,

This Load Balancer is not part of your AVD configuration.

This should have been created explicitly and separately to access the VM (which you have mentioned).

I would suggest you to check with the owner/creator of the Load Balancer as to understand what is the use case and if Basic SKU would be sufficient or not.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Kapil
Audi911 0 Reputation points

2023-11-30T06:43:41.6133333+00:00

Hello,

I also came across this which from what I can tell means there is no load balancer attached to the virtual machine. Is there any way that I can either disable the load balancer to validate if it breaks anything, or, are there any other places that would tell me if a load balancer is in use?

Thank you very much in advance!
Audi911 0 Reputation points

2023-11-30T06:45:56.1366667+00:00
TP 82,656 Reputation points

2023-11-30T06:51:24.5433333+00:00

Hi Anthony,

To add to the information Kapil already provided.

There is no need to have load balancer to access Azure Virtual Desktop host pool. Just speculating, perhaps there was previous RDS deployment (not using AVD) that used load balancer that was converted over to using AVD instead, and no one deleted the load balancer. You should examine the load balancer and see if it is being used.
KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-11-30T06:54:44+00:00
@Audi911

Instead of checking the configurations of the VM, please check the configuration of the Load Balancer.

What does the Backend Pool of the LB contains?

Is there a VM or is it empty

Check for Load Balancing Rules

Check for Inbound NAT Rule

If the above configurations are empty - you can go ahead and delete the Load Balancer.

In case they have some values, I would recommend you to check with the LB/backend resource owner

However, I am afraid "disabling" Load Balancer is not an option.

Cheers,

Kapil
Audi911 0 Reputation points

2023-11-30T06:55:55.7433333+00:00

Thank you very much for the insight. Other than the two photos I sent, where else would I validate if the load balancer is actually in use?

I should mention that this environment was set up with a 1 click tool, I am beginning to suspect it might have installed things that are not required.
KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-11-30T07:00:50.63+00:00
@Audi911

Have a look at : Azure Load Balancer components.

Mostly, the components I had mentioned above should give you a good overview (Especially Backend Pool).

Wrt, "I should mention that this environment was set up with a 1 click tool"

In that case, please check this tool/template's documentation to understand why this would have deployed a Load Balancer.

Meanwhile, I shall summarize my comments and post it as a new answer.

I would highly appreciate if you could Accept the answer as this will help the community find answers faster by identifying the correct answer.

Cheers,

Kapil
KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-12-01T11:49:45.99+00:00

@Audi911

Reaching out to check if there are any questions on this.

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance here.

Thanks,

Kapil

Please Accept an answer if correct.

Original posters help the community find answers faster by identifying the correct answer.
KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-12-06T09:06:15.7933333+00:00

@Audi911

Just checking in to see if the below answer helped. If this answers your query, please don’t forget to click "Accept the answer" and Up-Vote for the same, which might be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

Thanks,

Kapil

1 answer

KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-11-30T07:03:17.25+00:00
@Audi911

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform. Thank you for reaching out & I hope you are doing well.

Please go through the below before considering to downgrade your Load Balancer SKU

On September 30, 2025, Basic Load Balancer will be retired. For more information, see the official announcement. If you are currently using Basic Load Balancer, make sure to upgrade to Standard Load Balancer prior to the retirement date.

From the AVD Documentation, I don't see any mention of Load Balancer being used out of the box.

From what I could see,

This Load Balancer is not part of your AVD configuration.

This should have been created explicitly and separately to access the VM (which you have mentioned).

I suggested you to check with the owner/creator of the Load Balancer as to understand what is the use case and if Basic SKU would be sufficient or not.

This document will come in handy: Azure Load Balancer components

You can get an overview of this LB by considering:

What does the Backend Pool of the LB contains?

Is there a VM or is it empty

Check for Load Balancing Rules

Check for Inbound NAT Rule

If the above configurations are empty - you can go ahead and delete the Load Balancer.

Thanks,

Kapil

Please don’t forget to close the thread by clicking "Accept the answer" wherever the information provided helps you, as this can be beneficial to other community members.
Please sign in to rate this answer.
Audi911 0 Reputation points

2023-11-30T07:05:02.9633333+00:00

These are the load balancing rules ( I don't see any)

There are two inbound rules and one outbound rule

The backend pool is referencing two Virtual machines but neither of these two virtual machines are alive. They have been deleted and are no longer part of the tenant. The virtual machine that is actually running is not part of the backend pool

I can also see that both inbound rules are not associated to any virtual machines ( I am looking at this from the frontend IP Configuration

KapilAnanth-MSFT 39,206 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-11-30T07:08:05.6666667+00:00

@Anthony

In that case, I believe it is safe to go ahead and delete the Load Balancer.

Thanks,

Kapil

Please don’t forget to close the thread by clicking "Accept the answer" wherever the information provided helps you, as this can be beneficial to other community members.
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Basic load balancer vs Standard load balancer?

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