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Use HEAD health probes for Front Door backends#

Reliability · Front Door · 2021_03

Configure health probes to use HEAD requests to reduce performance overhead.

Description#

Azure Front Door supports sending HEAD or GET requests for health probes to backend endpoints. HTTP HEAD requests are identical to GET requests except that the server does not send a response body. As a result, HEAD request typically have a lower performance impact then GET request.

By eliminating a response body:

  • The server has a smaller payload to return.
  • May be able to further optimize the request by reducing calls to APIs or databases.

Recommendation#

Consider configuring health probes to query backend health endpoints using HEAD requests to reduce performance overhead.

Examples#

Configure with Azure template#

To deploy a Front Door resource that passes this rule:

  • Set the properties.healthProbeSettings.probeRequestType property to HEAD of the originGroups sub-resource.

For example:

Azure Template snippet
{
  "type": "Microsoft.Cdn/profiles",
  "apiVersion": "2021-06-01",
  "name": "[parameters('name')]",
  "location": "Global",
  "sku": {
    "name": "Premium_AzureFrontDoor"
  }
},
{
  "type": "Microsoft.Cdn/profiles/originGroups",
  "apiVersion": "2021-06-01",
  "name": "[format('{0}/{1}', parameters('name'), parameters('name'))]",
  "properties": {
    "loadBalancingSettings": {
      "sampleSize": 4,
      "successfulSamplesRequired": 3
    },
    "healthProbeSettings": {
      "probePath": "/healthz",
      "probeRequestType": "HEAD",
      "probeProtocol": "Http",
      "probeIntervalInSeconds": 100
    }
  },
  "dependsOn": [
    "[parameters('name')]"
  ]
}

To deploy a Front Door resource that passes this rule:

  • Set each properties.healthProbeSettings[*].properties.healthProbeMethod property to HEAD.

For example:

Azure Template snippet
{
  "type": "Microsoft.Network/frontDoors",
  "apiVersion": "2021-06-01",
  "name": "[parameters('name')]",
  "location": "global",
  "properties": {
    "enabledState": "Enabled",
    "frontendEndpoints": "[variables('frontendEndpoints')]",
    "loadBalancingSettings": "[variables('loadBalancingSettings')]",
    "backendPools": "[variables('backendPools')]",
    "healthProbeSettings": [
      {
        "name": "[variables('healthProbeSettingsName')]",
        "properties": {
          "enabledState": "Enabled",
          "path": "/healthz",
          "protocol": "Http",
          "intervalInSeconds": 120,
          "healthProbeMethod": "HEAD"
        }
      }
    ],
    "routingRules": "[variables('routingRules')]"
  }
}

Configure with Bicep#

To deploy a Front Door resource that passes this rule:

  • Set the properties.healthProbeSettings.probeRequestType property to HEAD of the originGroups sub-resource.

For example:

Azure Bicep snippet
resource afd_premium 'Microsoft.Cdn/profiles@2021-06-01' = {
  name: name
  location: 'Global'
  sku: {
    name: 'Premium_AzureFrontDoor'
  }
}

resource frontDoorOriginGroup 'Microsoft.Cdn/profiles/originGroups@2021-06-01' = {
  name: name
  parent: afd_premium
  properties: {
    loadBalancingSettings: {
      sampleSize: 4
      successfulSamplesRequired: 3
    }
    healthProbeSettings: {
      probePath: '/healthz'
      probeRequestType: 'HEAD'
      probeProtocol: 'Http'
      probeIntervalInSeconds: 100
    }
  }
}

To deploy a Front Door resource that passes this rule:

  • Set each properties.healthProbeSettings[*].properties.healthProbeMethod property to HEAD.

For example:

Azure Bicep snippet
resource afd_classic 'Microsoft.Network/frontDoors@2021-06-01' = {
  name: name
  location: 'global'
  properties: {
    enabledState: 'Enabled'
    frontendEndpoints: frontendEndpoints
    loadBalancingSettings: loadBalancingSettings
    backendPools: backendPools
    healthProbeSettings: [
      {
        name: healthProbeSettingsName
        properties: {
          enabledState: 'Enabled'
          path: '/healthz'
          protocol: 'Http'
          intervalInSeconds: 120
          healthProbeMethod: 'HEAD'
        }
      }
    ]
    routingRules: routingRules
  }
}

Configure with Azure CLI#

Azure CLI snippet
az network front-door probe update --front-door-name '<front_door>' -n '<probe_name>' -g '<resource_group>' --probeMethod 'HEAD' --path '/healthz'

Configure with Azure PowerShell#

Azure PowerShell snippet
$probeSetting = New-AzFrontDoorHealthProbeSettingObject -Name '<probe_name>' -HealthProbeMethod 'HEAD' -Path '/healthz'
Set-AzFrontDoor -Name '<front_door>' -ResourceGroupName '<resource_group>' -HealthProbeSetting $probeSetting
Last update: 2023-02-18

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