AWS Load Balancer Types and Their Uses.

We review the AWS Elastic Load Balancer service for beginners and enthusiasts.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a variety of load balancer solutions to scale applications and ensure high availability in cloud infrastructure. In this article, we will examine the four main types of load balancers that AWS offers and in which scenarios each is ideal.

What is Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)?

Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) is a load balancing service offered by AWS. ELB increases the performance and reliability of your applications by routing incoming traffic to multiple targets (e.g. EC2 instances, containers, IP addresses).

1. Application Load Balancer (ALB)

Purpose of Use: Application Load Balancer (ALB) is a layer 7 load balancer optimized for routing HTTP/HTTPS traffic. ALB can make routing decisions based on URL path, query parameters, headers, or HTTP method.

Usage Scenarios:

• In microservice architectures, situations where each service must be accessible via different paths.

• Advanced routing needs for applications based on HTTP/HTTPS protocol.

• In web-based applications, to direct traffic to a specific resource or user.

Application Load Balancer

2. Network Load Balancer (NLB)

Purpose of Use: Network Load Balancer (NLB) is a layer 4 load balancer and is designed to route fast and high-volume connections over low-level protocols such as TCP and UDP.

Usage Scenarios:

• Services that require low latency, such as real-time games or financial applications.

• High-traffic applications, such as systems with millions of simultaneous connections.

• For protocols other than HTTP (e.g. TCP, UDP).

Network Load Balancer

3. Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB)

Purpose of Use: A Gateway Load Balancer is used to direct network traffic to third-party virtual network devices (e.g. firewalls, monitoring tools). This balancer acts as a gateway used to filter, monitor, or modify network traffic.

Usage Scenarios:

• Route traffic through firewalls or monitoring tools to meet network security requirements.

• Establishing the infrastructure required for security service providers to offer their services to their customers.

• Requirements to control data flow on the network, such as traffic monitoring and analysis.

  
  

Gateway Load Balancer

4. Classic Load Balancer (CLB)

Intended Use: Classic Load Balancer is AWS's first generation load balancer, offering both layer 7 (Layer 7) and layer 4 (Layer 4) load balancing. However, CLB is now considered legacy technology and ALB or NLB are often preferred for new projects.

Usage Scenarios:

• For the purpose of preserving existing CLB configurations.

• Legacy systems with simple HTTP/HTTPS or TCP load balancing requirements.

In summary;

AWS Load Balancer options provide solutions that fit your application needs, providing high availability, security, and scalability. Which type of load balancer you choose depends on how your application will manage traffic, what protocol it uses, and its performance requirements.

Stay healthy.