Load Balancer is another OCI service that provides high availability, scalability, and efficiency by distributing incoming customer traffic to multiple targets or servers within a Virtual Cloud Network (VCN). It functions as a reverse proxy and is accessible to multiple clients. Clients send their requests to the Load Balancer, which then forwards the traffic to the various backend servers. The setup not only safeguards the backend servers, but also ensures high availability. The Load Balancer is available within an OCI Region under the Virtual Cloud Network (VCN). Internet gateways are used to direct customer traffic to the Load Balancer for distribution among multiple backend servers. There are two types of Load Balancers:

  1. Layer 7 Load Balancer: This type of load balancer operates at the application layer and follows HTTP and HTTPS protocols to connect with the backend servers.  The Load Balancer comes in two different configurations. The first is a flexible shape, where users can define the range (maximum and minimum) of supported traffic. It can handle a wide range of traffic capacities, from 10 Mbps to 8 Gbps. It also incorporates routing intelligence based on packet analysis. The second configuration is called dynamic, where users predefine specific shapes (micro, small, medium, and large). With Dynamic Shaping, the Load Balancer automatically scales based on the incoming traffic without requiring any warm-up time. Load Balancer can be either public, accessible from the web, or private, enabling communication between multiple tiers and a database. Internet gateways are used to handle customer traffic as it is unidirectional. 
  2. Network Load Balancer: This type of load balancer operates at the transport layer (layer 3 and 4) and supports protocols such as TCP, UDP, and ICMP to connect with backend servers. Similar to the HTTP Load Balancer, the Network Load Balancer offers both public and private options. It is highly available, scalable, and has a lower latency. In comparison to the HTTP Load Balancer, the Network Load Balancer provides faster performance. Internet gateways are again used to handle customer traffic.