Best Tips to Get Most out of AWS Load Balancer

AWS offers three types of load balancers—Application Load Balancer (ALB), Network Load Balancer (NLB), and Gateway Load Balancer—each serving different purposes based on the type and requirements of network traffic. ALBs operate at the application layer and are suited for web-based traffic, allowing routing based on HTTP requests, while NLBs function at the network layer, ideal for handling high volumes of raw traffic and network spikes with reduced latency. Gateway Load Balancers are used for integrating third-party virtual applications. To optimize the use of AWS load balancers, it is crucial to enforce security measures like redirecting HTTP to HTTPS and using TLS protocols, while also configuring the load balancers for scalability by registering EC2 instances across multiple availability zones and enabling features like cross-zone load balancing. Additional best practices include leveraging Amazon Certificate Manager for SSL certificates, setting up dynamic port mapping in containerized applications, conducting proper health checks, and utilizing monitoring tools like Amazon CloudWatch or DataDog to track critical metrics. Although AWS ELBs are essential for achieving horizontal scaling in applications, particularly for businesses using microservices or containerized applications, their complexity can be mitigated using modern solutions like Qovery, which simplifies the configuration and management processes.