Networking

Load balancing

A load balancer gives users one address and spreads their requests over several servers.

Why use one

It removes single points of failure, lets you add or remove servers without changing the address, and routes around targets that fail health checks.

Elasticity

Paired with an Auto Scaling group, the number of instances behind the load balancer grows when demand rises and shrinks when it falls.

Health checks

The load balancer periodically requests a path on each target and stops sending traffic to any that do not respond correctly.

Next: Static websites →