Load Balancer Realistic Use Cases

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๐Ÿง  Use Case
  • Load Balancer Realistic Use Cases

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๐Ÿง  USE CASE

Load Balancer Realistic Use Cases

Everyone, especially cloud engineers, should be aware that load balancers are not just for traffic distribution.

They're foundational for modern cloud architectures, solving real-world problems like handling failures, optimizing routing, and ensuring security.

Understanding load balancers is crucial to avoid critical incidents, as seen in the Atlassian Confluence case where improper load balancer configurations impacted service availability, highlighting that no one is immune.

Letโ€™s discuss 6 key realistic load balancer use cases:

1. Failure Handling

Redirects traffic from failed instances to healthy ones, ensuring high availability.

  • Load balancers periodically perform health checks on instances using protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP.

  • An instance is marked โ€œunhealthyโ€ after UnhealthyThresholdCount consecutive failures.

  • Traffic is automatically rerouted to healthy instances in the target group.

2. Instance Health Checks

Ensures only healthy backend instances handle requests.

  • Configurable health check parameters such as IntervalSeconds (default: 30), TimeoutSeconds (default: 5), and health-check path (e.g., /health).

  • HTTP response codes (e.g., 200) indicate health, while non-2xx or 3xx responses mark instances as unhealthy.

  • Health status dynamically updates backend pools for active routing.

3. Platform Specific Routing

Routes requests based on request attributes for platform specific backends.

  • Listeners inspect attributes like headers, query strings (e.g., ?platform=mobile), or cookies.

  • AWS ALB provides advanced request routing rules with priority-based evaluation for matching conditions.

4. SSL Termination

Offloads SSL/TLS encryption to the load balancer for improved backend performance.

  • Load balancers terminate SSL at the edge, decrypt HTTPS traffic, and forward it as HTTP.

  • Managed certificates (AWS ACM) simplify certificate deployment and renewal.

  • Supports multiple SSL certificates (SNI) for hosting multiple domains.

5. Cross Zone Load Balancing

Balances traffic evenly across instances in multiple availability zones (AZs).

  • By default, AWS ALB distributes requests evenly across AZs. This can be toggled for precise balancing needs.

  • Automatically redistributes traffic in case of AZ failures or resource scaling events.

6. User Stickiness

Ensures a consistent user experience by binding sessions to a specific backend instance.

  • Sticky sessions use cookies (AWSALB or application-defined) to map a user to a backend instance.

  • Configurable session duration (e.g., StickinessDurationSeconds) determines how long a user remains bound to the same instance.

  • Supports fallback mechanisms in case the instance becomes unhealthy.

Note: Stickiness creates an imbalance in traffic handling. Use with caution, considering the use case and understanding the trade-offs.

Load balancers are far more than traffic directors - they are enablers of resilience, performance, and tailored user experiences.

When architecting your systems, leverage these use cases to meet modern cloud demands effectively.

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