But, if you’re working with microservices and containerized applications or need advanced routing capabilities, ALB is the better option. With content-based routing, multiple target groups, and deeper AWS service integration, ALB offers greater flexibility and scalability for modern cloud-native environments. A GLB is ideal when you’re balancing on the network gateway level. For example, a GLB works well if you manage traffic between cloud and on-premises environments or across different regions.
Both load balancers support security groups, which you can use to control the traffic allowed to reach your targets (such as EC2 instances, IP addresses, etc.). For example, you can configure the traffic to be received only from specific IP addresses, enabling you to control who can access your internet-facing or internal load balancers. These load balancers use different types of algorithms to distribute traffic evenly to their targets. An ALB uses a round-robin algorithm by default, routing traffic one after another. However, an NLB uses a flow hash algorithm so that traffic is routed to specific targets in a predetermined manner.
It can peek inside HTTP requests and route traffic based on paths, headers, or query strings – perfect for microservices architectures. Certain application architectures may require zonal isolation. For example, single-AZ web applications may need traffic to be distributed only within a specific availability zone to minimize latency and avoid data transfer costs.
The load balancer you choose today needs to handle tomorrow’s traffic too. ALB scales automatically with your traffic and supports advanced traffic shaping—perfect if you’re expecting rapid growth or plan to implement blue/green deployments. You can stack multiple conditions and create priority-based rule chains. This means you could route mobile users to optimized servers or premium customers to high-performance instances. ALB supports AWS Web Application Firewall to block incoming requests based on specific rules. For example, you can create a rate-limiting rule that allows a maximum of 500 requests from a specific IP address within 5 minutes, after which any additional requests will be blocked.
Network Load Balancer operates at layer 4 (transport layer), which means it routes traffic based on IP protocol data, TCP/UDP ports, and IP addresses. Unlike ALB, it doesn’t inspect the actual content of your packets—it just forwards them. Almost all protocols differ between ALB and NLB and are used for different use cases.
You can define rules to route common traffic to an entire group. For example, you can create a target group for general requests and other target groups for requests to the microservices for your application. Network Load Balancer is designed to work within a single availability zone. If one availability zone goes down, NLB will route traffic to other available zones.
I would use NLB for any application where pure TCP/UDP traffic needs to be load balanced, providing extremely low latency, high performance and supporting unpredicted traffic spikes. Choosing between an Application Load Balancer and a Network Load Balancer doesn’t have to be daunting if you break it down into what each one offers. Remember, aligning your load balancer choice with your specific application needs is crucial for optimum performance. Don’t forget to evaluate operational requirements like traffic types and expected load before making your call. Your app architecture practically screams which load balancer it needs. ALB was built for these modern setups, with path-based routing that directs traffic to the right service.
Clicking the view/edit rules link allows you to add, edit and remove routing rules. These rules can be path or header-based, and each request is directed to a defined target group. A default action ensures that requests without a match to a preceding rule are routed to a predefined target group. Each layer in the OSI model is supported by the one below it.
Beyond having features of the Classic ELB, the ALB manages routing based on user-defined rules. A single ALB can direct incoming traffic to multiple services based on host-based or path-based rules, making it an excellent choice for modern cloud applications. An ALB is a good choice when you need flexible application-level traffic management and routing. It’s best with microservices, containerized environments, and web applications.
By using this hash, the algorithm routes traffic to the same target for the duration of the connection. Sticky sessions are a mechanism to route requests from the same client to the same target. Elastic Load Balancer is designed to handle traffic as it grows and can load balance millions of requests/sec. Moving on to Network Load Balancers—if speed and efficiency are your goals, you may want to give NLB a shot.
Did you know that according to a study by AWS, nearly 90% of companies leveraging cloud resources report improved performance and higher availability? This just goes to show how essential proper load balancing is for a smooth application experience. Selecting the right load balancer can make or break your app’s performance, especially in today’s fast-paced tech world. A subpar choice could lead to laggy websites, unhappy users, or even financial loss.
NLB simply forwards packets without inspecting them deeply – making it lightning fast but less feature-rich. It’s like choosing between a sports car (NLB) and an SUV with all the fancy features (ALB). The dynamic port mapping feature is a game-changer for containerized apps. As containers spin up and down, ALB automatically detects the ports and adjusts routing accordingly. In 2016, AWS augmented its Classic ELB offering with an Application Load Balancer (ALB).
ALB costs more but handles application-layer tasks that would otherwise require extra compute resources. NLB is cheaper per hour but might push complexity (and costs) to your application servers. NLB handles what ALB can’t – UDP traffic and static IP addresses. You can centralize your SSL certificates at the ALB level scammed by limefx instead of managing them on each backend server.
When you create an ALB, you must specify in which availability zones (one subnet per availability zone) you will “enable” it. This means that the ALB will only be able to distribute traffic to the enabled availability zones. ALBs, NLBs, and GLBs operate at different layers of your network communication. An ALB operates on OSI layer 7 and allows for application-level traffic manipulation and routing. An NLB operates on layer 4 for network-level traffic management based on ports and IP addresses. A GLB works across layers 3 and 7, providing balancing and routing services at the network level along with gateway functionality.
But ALB takes it a step further with view/edit rules, where you can manage routing logic. The Application Load Balancer (ALB) performs TLS termination when you create an HTTPS listener. Similarly, the Network Load Balancer (NLB) performs TLS termination when you create a TLS listener. Keep in mind that if you use a different listener, such as TCP, then encrypted traffic will be forwarded (pass-through) to the targets, and traffic decryption will occur there. Existing flows continue to go to existing target appliances, new flows are rerouted to healthy target appliances.
NLB can be created in only one availability zone, whereas with ALB, a minimum of two availability zones must be enabled to create a load balancer. Ultimately, your architectural requirements should guide your decision. For applications demanding maximum throughput and consistent performance, NLB may be your best choice.
Application load balancer (ALB), network load balancer (NLB), and gateway load balancer (GLB) are three types of load balancers used in the cloud. Load balancing is the process of distributing network traffic equally across a pool of resources supporting an application. Modern applications process millions of users simultaneously.
Ever wondered why your load balancer chokes during peak hours? Both load balancers automatically scale with your traffic needs, but they handle it differently. When you need smarter request handling, ALB is your go-to load balancer. Unlike its NLB cousin, ALB actually examines your HTTP traffic and makes routing decisions based on what’s inside. The load balancer decision seems simple until you realize it’s the linchpin of your entire application’s reliability.
The Classic ELB and the ALB share common functions, but the ALB has been specialized to provide users with enhanced capabilities. By combining NLB with AWS PrivateLink, you can ensure secure, private, and high-performance access to your services. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app brings together your favorite apps in one intuitive platform that keeps your data secure with enterprise data protection. Spark creativity and collaboration in any learning environment with a variety of Microsoft 365 apps and free templates to choose from. Your files and memories are secure in the cloud with 5GB of storage for free and 1TB with a paid Microsoft 365 subscription. Anyone in your organization can quickly create documents, presentations, and worksheets within a single, unified app experience.
After the load balancer receives a connection request, it selects a target from https://limefx.group/ the target group for the default rule. It attempts to open a TCP connection to the selected target on the port specified in the listener configuration. Each individual TCP connection is routed to a single target for the life of the connection. Similarly, you can also route a UDP flow consistently to a single target throughout its lifetime. For example, if you have multiple database servers with duplicate data, the NLB routes traffic based on predetermined server IP addresses or server availability.
The main difference lies in how the load balancers are built. ALB operates at the application level (OSI Layer 7), while NLB operates at the network level (OSI Layer 4). This means ALB must inspect and process the content of HTTP/HTTPS requests and additionally decrypt and re-encrypt HTTPS traffic (see TLS Termination). When comparing latency between the two load balancers, NLB is the clear winner. However, it’s important to note that for most web-based applications, the latency provided by ALB is perfectly sufficient. But if you require extremely low latency for real-time applications, such as gaming, video streaming or financial transactions, NLB is the better choice.
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