Azure Traffic Manager
Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic load balancer that distributes incoming traffic across multiple Azure or external endpoints based on configurable routing methods. It enhances application availability and responsiveness by directing users to the healthiest endpoint, and supports global failover and performance optimization scenarios. It operates at the DNS level, meaning it doesn't see the actual data traffic but manages how DNS queries are resolved.
Developers should use Azure Traffic Manager when building highly available, multi-region applications in Azure to ensure reliability and low latency for global users. It's ideal for scenarios like disaster recovery (failover routing), performance optimization (geographic routing), and load distribution (weighted or priority routing) across web apps, VMs, or cloud services. It's particularly useful for applications requiring 99.99% uptime or those serving international audiences where endpoint proximity matters.