- Release Notes and Announcements
- Product Introduction
- Purchase Guide
- Quick Start
- API Documentation
- History
- API Category
- Making API Requests
- Target Group APIs
- CreateTargetGroup
- DeleteTargetGroups
- DescribeTargetGroups
- DescribeTargetGroupList
- ModifyTargetGroupAttribute
- AssociateTargetGroups
- DisassociateTargetGroups
- RegisterTargetGroupInstances
- DeregisterTargetGroupInstances
- DescribeTargetGroupInstances
- ModifyTargetGroupInstancesWeight
- DescribeTargetGroupInstanceStatus
- GWLB APIs
- Other APIs
- Data Types
- Error Codes
- Release Notes and Announcements
- Product Introduction
- Purchase Guide
- Quick Start
- API Documentation
- History
- API Category
- Making API Requests
- Target Group APIs
- CreateTargetGroup
- DeleteTargetGroups
- DescribeTargetGroups
- DescribeTargetGroupList
- ModifyTargetGroupAttribute
- AssociateTargetGroups
- DisassociateTargetGroups
- RegisterTargetGroupInstances
- DeregisterTargetGroupInstances
- DescribeTargetGroupInstances
- ModifyTargetGroupInstancesWeight
- DescribeTargetGroupInstanceStatus
- GWLB APIs
- Other APIs
- Data Types
- Error Codes
What is Gateway Load Balancer?
Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) is a load balancer running at the network layer. GWLB instances enable you to deploy, scale, and manage third-party virtual devices such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, analysis systems, and visualization devices, with simpler operations and higher security.
GWLB handles business traffic at the network layer and is independent of the device status. This design enables compatibility with a third-party virtual device, provided that the device supports GENEVE encapsulation/decapsulation and original data packets.
Components
A working GWLB usually consists of the following components:
GWLB Instance: A GWLB instance is a running gateway load balancing service used for traffic distribution.
Listener: used to check client requests and forward them to the real server.
Target Group: a group of real server instances used to receive frontend requests. Generally, third-party virtual devices can be added to the target group.
Access requests from outside the GWLB are distributed through the GWLB instance based on relevant policies to real servers for processing.
Terms
Terminology | Full Name | Description |
GWLB Instance | Gateway Load Balancer | A gateway load balancing service provided by Tencent Cloud. |
Listener | Listener | GWLB service listener, which monitors all IP packets on all ports. It is automatically generated after a GWLB instance is created, with no need for additional configurations. |
Target Group | Target Group | A group of real servers that receive the requests distributed by GWLB. |
How It Works
Basic Working Principle
The GWLB instance monitors all IP packets on all ports and forwards the traffic to a specified target group. GWLB supports traffic scheduling with the symmetric hash algorithm based on the triplet of source IP, source port, and transport protocol. The traffic with the same triplet will be scheduled to the same real server.
Requesting Routing
The GWLB instance achieves secure cross-VPC edge traffic exchange through the GWLB endpoint service. You can deploy the GWLB instance in the same environment as the VPC of third-party virtual devices, and add the third-party virtual devices to instances in the target group of the GWLB instance.
Traffic passing through the GWLB instance follows the route table configuration of the VPC. The traffic flows from the service user's VPC through Private Link to the service provider's VPC and then returns to the service user's VPC. You need to create GWLB endpoints and GWLB endpoint services in different subnets.
Health Check
GWLB runs health checks periodically at a custom interval. After it sends TCP/PING packets to instances in a target group for health check, the instances in the target group will respond to the health check packets. When an unhealthy instance is detected, GWLB stops forwarding traffic to the instance until it is detected to be running normally again.
Related Services
GWLB works with the following services to improve the application availability and scalability:
Private Link: Quickly establishes access connections across VPCs under the same account or different accounts.
Cloud Firewall: Provides convenient Internet protection for you, to meet the requirements for the unified management of cloud access control and the log audit security and management.
Tencent Cloud Observability Platform: Helps you monitor the running status of the GWLB and all backend instances and perform necessary operations.
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