Five Windows Server 2016 VMs run as web servers behind an Azure load balancer LB1. Ensure that each visitor is consistently routed to the same backend server for their requests. Which configuration is required?

Session persistence (also known as source IP affinity or client IP affinity) ensures that requests from a specific client are always directed to the same backend instance behind the load balancer. By setting it to "Client IP and protocol," the load balancer uses the client's IP address and the protocol to hash and route subsequent requests from that client to the same server, maintaining session state. Setting the Idle time-out to 20 minutes only affects how long a TCP or HTTP connection is kept open without activity; it doesn't guarantee session persistence. Setting session persistence to "None" would distribute requests round-robin or based on least connections, potentially sending a client's requests to different servers. Enabling Floating IP (Direct Server Return) is used for specific scenarios where the backend servers respond directly to the client, bypassing the load balancer for the return path, and does not inherently provide session persistence.