Choosing a Load Balancer in GCP - Google Cloud Platform V2

Hafeez Baig |
9 steps |
21 seconds

Type "**Load balancing**" in the search bar and click on the **Load balancing** option

**What is Load Balancing?**\ \ Load balancing in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a service that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers or instances. It ensures high availability and reliability by distributing the workload to prevent any single server from becoming overwhelmed. GCP offers several types of load balancing, including HTTP(S), TCP/SSL, and UDP, to handle different types of traffic. This helps improve application performance and provides seamless scaling to meet varying levels of demand.

**Load balancing** wizard will open, on the left side click on the **CREATE LOAD BALANCER** button

**Create a Load balancer** wizard will open, scroll to the **Type of load balancer** section then select the **Application Load balancer (HTTP/HTTPS)** option

**What is Application Load balancer?**\ \ An Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributes incoming web traffic (HTTP/HTTPS) across multiple servers to ensure high availability and performance. It can route traffic based on content, offload SSL encryption, and monitor server health to only send traffic to healthy servers. In GCP, the HTTP(S) Load Balancer serves as the ALB.

Select the **Network Load Balancer (TCP/UDP/SSL)** option

**What is Network Load Balancer (TCP/UDP/SSL)?**\ \ A Network Load Balancer (NLB) distributes incoming TCP, UDP, and SSL traffic across multiple servers. It operates at the transport layer (Layer 4) of the OSI model, ensuring high availability and performance by balancing the load among servers without considering the content of the traffic. In GCP, this helps manage non-HTTP/HTTPS traffic efficiently.

Scroll to the **Proxy or passthrough** section, select the option **Proxy load balancer**

**What is Proxy load balancer?**\ \ A proxy load balancer sits between clients and servers, forwarding client requests to backend servers. It acts as an intermediary, managing traffic to ensure efficient distribution and high availability. The proxy load balancer can handle complex routing, SSL termination, and offer security features by hiding backend server details from clients. In GCP, HTTP(S) Load Balancers and SSL Proxy Load Balancers are examples of proxy load balancers.

Select the **Passthrough load balancer** option

**What is Passthrough load balancer?**\ \ A passthrough load balancer distributes network traffic directly to backend servers without modifying the traffic or handling SSL termination. It operates at the network layer, simply passing the traffic through to the servers, which handle the decryption and any other processing. This type of load balancer is used when backend servers need to see the original client information or when handling non-HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

Scroll to the **Public facing or internal** section, select the option **Public facing (external)**

**What is Public facing (external)?**\ \ A public-facing (external) load balancer distributes incoming internet traffic to backend servers. It has a public IP address, making it accessible from the internet. This type of load balancer is used to manage and balance requests from external clients, ensuring high availability and reliability for public-facing applications and services. In GCP, examples include the HTTP(S) Load Balancer and the TCP/UDP Network Load Balancer with public IP addresses.

Select the **Internal** option

**What is Internal load balancer?**\ \ An internal load balancer distributes traffic among servers within a private network. It is not accessible from the internet and is used to manage and balance requests between internal services, such as between microservices or within a company's internal applications. In GCP, the Internal TCP/UDP Load Balancer is an example, helping to improve reliability and performance for internal network traffic.

Congratulations on completing this lab and Exploring Load balancing in GCP