Introduction to AWS Network Load Balancer
AWS has several critical services that drive the internet. If you have ever built any application on top of AWS and need a high throughput or volume of traffic, the chances are that you’ve leaned on an AWS Network Load Balancer at some point in the discussion. AWS NLB is nothing but a Layer 4 load balancer, and consistency helps with low-latency forwarding of massive amounts of TCP, UDP, and even TLS traffic. NLBs, being operational at Layer 4 of the OSI model, support a host of features. You get features like static IPs, support for long-lived connections out of the box, and can be configured to our requirements.
In my projects, I’ve used NLBs for use cases ranging from being the front end for low-latency database requests to hosting an entire backend of an application. NLB helps in all these use cases by giving us a consistent latency, and it holds up its end every time. There are alternatives for NLBs like the AWS Application Load Balancers, but they operate at a higher level of the OSI model and are not always the choice for developers looking for a high-throughput, no-nonsense load balancer.
