Support for Azure API Management Backend Load Balancer Pools

[markti]

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Feature Request: Support for Azure API Management Backend Load Balancer Pools

Description

Add support in the azurerm_api_management_backend (or a new dedicated resource) for Backend Load Balancer Pools within Azure API Management.
This feature allows users to group multiple backend services into a single logical pool, enabling built-in load balancing, failover, and routing within API Management.

Proposed Resource Example

resource "azurerm_api_management_backend_pool" "example" {
  name                = "example-backend-pool"
  api_management_name = azurerm_api_management.example.name
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name

  # Optional description
  description = "Load-balanced pool of backend services for internal APIs"

  # One or more backend members
  backends = [
    azurerm_api_management_backend.backend1.id,
    azurerm_api_management_backend.backend2.id
  ]
}

### Description

Azure API Management (APIM) currently allows defining multiple individual backends, but there is no native support in the Terraform provider for grouping those backends into Backend Load Balancer Pools — a logical construct that enables traffic distribution, failover, and routing across multiple backend services.
This feature request proposes adding a new Terraform resource, such as azurerm_api_management_backend_pool, that would allow users to create and manage backend load balancer pools within an API Management instance. A backend pool would act as a single logical target for APIs, simplifying configuration and enabling built-in load balancing behavior within APIM.

Creating a backend pool would involve:
1. Specifying a required name to uniquely identify the pool.
2. Optionally providing a description for documentation and readability.
3. Selecting one or more existing backends (referencing azurerm_api_management_backend resources) to include in the pool.

This enhancement would bring Terraform feature parity with Azure’s native APIM configuration model and enable infrastructure-as-code management of complex backend routing and high availability scenarios. It would particularly benefit users managing microservices or multi-region API deployments, allowing them to declaratively configure pools that distribute traffic across several backend endpoints.

### New or Affected Resource(s)/Data Source(s)

azurerm_api_management_backend_pool

### Potential Terraform Configuration

```hcl
resource "azurerm_api_management_backend_pool" "example" {
  name                = "example-backend-pool"
  api_management_name = azurerm_api_management.example.name
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name

  # Optional description
  description = "Load-balanced pool of backend services for internal APIs"

  # One or more backend members
  backends = [
    azurerm_api_management_backend.backend1.id,
    azurerm_api_management_backend.backend2.id
  ]
}

References

No response

[sush2424]

is there any update on this feature, i need to use this as currently we are using weighted routing through apim policy but i see we have to sue random function which is not reliable and we need deterministic routing, is there any ETA on this ?

[domroutley]

I have (had?) a PR that would do this, as well as the Circuit Breakers functionality.
It was to resolve #24594. A different PR got merged instead to just add the CB functionality, which closed that issue (which I don't really understand, as that other issue aslo asked for LB functionality).
I will see if I can strip the CB bits out of my PR and rework it for Load Balancers.

[ThomasBleijendaal]

Any update on this? The referenced PR looks ok and it would be great if this feature was merged.

[AccessRichH]

Please review and merge this, we've been waiting for months for it!

[jpavlakis]

Is there a review in progress? The PR is open since November 19th.