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AWS Load balancers

ELB advantages:

  • can distribute traffic across EC2 instances, containers, IP addresses, and Lambda functions
  • also load balances to on-premises servers.
  • HA
    • You need to be sure is that the load balancer's targets are deployed across multiple Availability Zones.
  • Scalability
    • automatically scales to meet the demand of the incoming traffic

ELB components

  • Listener
    • Rule
  • Target group
    • Targets

ELB types

  • application load balancer https/http, layer 7
    • user authorisation
      • Open ID connect
        • SAML
      • Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
      • Microsoft Active Directory
    • rich metrics and logging
    • redirects
    • fixed response
    • sticky sessions
      • If requests must be sent to the same backend server because the application is stateful, use the sticky session feature.
  • network load balancer tcp/udp, layer 4
    • source IP address
    • low latency
    • sticky sessions
    • static ip support
    • elastic ip address support
    • DNS failover
  • gateway load balancer ip, layer 3,4
    • HA for third-party virtual appliances
    • gateway load balancer endpoints
    • health checks
    • monitoring using cloudWatch
    • private connectivity: connects internet gateways, VPCs, and other network resources over a private network.
    • streamlined deployments

Requirements to the target group

  • health check mu be worked:
    • two types of health checks:
      • using TCP and marking the instance as available if the connection is successful
      • Making an HTTP or HTTPS request to a webpage that you specify and validating that an HTTP response code is returned

References

  1. AWS EssentialsModule 6
  2. https://explore.skillbuilder.aws/learn/course/134/play/85854/aws-cloud-practitioner-essentials Module 2
  3. AWS website: Elastic Load Balancing features(opens in a new tab)
  4. AWS website: AWS Certificate Manager(opens in a new tab)
  5. AWS documentation: Authenticate users using an Application Load Balancer(opens in a new tab)
  6. AWS developer guide: How AWS WAF works(opens in a new tab)
  7. AWS blog: Introducing AWS Gateway Load Balancer(opens in a new tab)