The Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that operates at OSI layer 7, allowing for advanced routing based on URI paths and host headers, unlike traditional load balancers which work at layer 4. It supports TLS/SSL termination and end-to-end encryption, catering to varying security and compliance requirements. The key difference between an application gateway and a standard load balancer lies in the application's routing and security features, with the application gateway offering more specialized capabilities.

1. Application Gateway

2. Agenda
● What is Application Gateway?
● Usage of Application Gateway?
● Difference between Load Balancer and Application Gateway

3. What is Application Gateway?
Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic (OSI layer 7) load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to
your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP)
and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.
With AGW, on top of load balancing your workloads, you can make routing decisions based on URI path or
host headers. For example, you can route traffic based on the incoming URL. If /images are in the inbound
URL, you can route traffic to a specific set of servers (or pool) configured for images. If /video is in the URL,
that traffic is routed to another pool.
It can be used to do TLS/SSL termination. TLS/SSL termination can be useful to allow unencrypted traffic
between AGW and backend servers saving some of processing load needed to encrypt and decrypt said
traffic. However, sometimes unencrypted communication to the servers is not acceptable because of
security requirements, compliance requirements, or application may only accept a secure connection. In
these situations, Application Gateway also supports end-to-end TLS/SSL encryption.

4. Usage of Application Gateway?
With AGW, on top of load balancing your workloads, you can make routing decisions based on URI path or
host headers. For example, you can route traffic based on the incoming URL. If /images are in the inbound
URL, you can route traffic to a specific set of servers (or pool) configured for images. If /video is in the URL,
that traffic is routed to another pool.
It can be used to do TLS/SSL termination. TLS/SSL termination can be useful to allow unencrypted traffic
between AGW and backend servers saving some of processing load needed to encrypt and decrypt said
traffic. However, sometimes unencrypted communication to the servers is not acceptable because of
security requirements, compliance requirements, or application may only accept a secure connection. In
these situations, Application Gateway also supports end-to-end TLS/SSL encryption.

6. Difference of Application Gateway and Load
Balancer
Load Balancer: Focuses on distributing traffic to ensure high availability and reliability. Works at both Layer
4 and Layer 7, depending on the type.
Application Gateway: Provides advanced routing and security features tailored for web applications.
Operates primarily at Layer 7 and includes functionalities like a web application firewall and URL-based
routing.

7. Thank You