What are Load Balancers?
Load balancers distribute incoming traffic across multiple instances to ensure high availability and optimal performance. They automatically route requests to healthy instances.Features
- Automatic Failover: Route traffic away from unhealthy instances
- SSL Termination: Handle HTTPS at the load balancer
- Health Checks: Continuously monitor instance health
- Sticky Sessions: Route users to the same instance
- Multiple Algorithms: Round robin, least connections, IP hash
How It Works
Traffic Flow
Traffic Flow
- User sends request to load balancer IP
- Load balancer checks health of backend instances
- Request is routed to a healthy instance
- Response is returned to user
- Unhealthy instances are marked and bypassed
Use Cases
High Availability
Distribute traffic across multiple instances to avoid downtime
Auto-Scaling
Automatically add instances when traffic increases
SSL Offloading
Handle SSL termination at the load balancer
Geographic Routing
Route users to nearest datacenter
Configuration Options
Health Checks
Configure checks to monitor instance health:- HTTP: Check specific endpoint (e.g.,
/health) - TCP: Basic connectivity check
- Interval: How often to check (5s - 60s)
- Timeout: Response timeout (2s - 5s)
Load Balancing Algorithm
Choose how traffic is distributed:- Round Robin: Evenly distribute across instances
- Least Connections: Route to instance with fewest connections
- IP Hash: Route based on source IP for session stickiness
Creating a Load Balancer
1
Create Load Balancer
Navigate to Networking → Load Balancers → Create
2
Add Backend Instances
Select instances to distribute traffic across
3
Configure Health Checks
Set up monitoring for your applications
4
Assign Reserved IP
Optional: Use a static IP address
Pricing
- Standard: 0.02/GB processed
- Enterprise: 0.015/GB processed (includes DDoS protection)