ANS-C01 Question 215
Single answerYou are designing an application hosted in AWS that serves HTTP and HTTPS traffic to users worldwide. The application needs to perform SSL termination, URL-based routing, and forwarding requests to different microservices based on the path (e.g., '/api', '/static'). Additionally, the application must support WebSocket traffic. Which load balancer should you choose to meet these requirements?
- A
Application Load Balancer (ALB)
- B
Network Load Balancer (NLB)
- C
Classic Load Balancer (CLB)
- D
AWS Global Accelerator
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The Application Load Balancer (ALB) is designed to handle layer 7 traffic and provides advanced features such as SSL termination, URL-based routing, and WebSocket support. These features align with the requirements of the application in the scenario. Other options, such as the Network Load Balancer and Classic Load Balancer, do not provide all the required capabilities or are not optimized for this use case.
- A. Correct.
The Application Load Balancer (ALB) operates at layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS), making it suitable for SSL termination, URL-based routing, and WebSocket support. It is the correct choice for this scenario.
- B. Incorrect.
The Network Load Balancer (NLB) operates at layer 4 (TCP/UDP), which makes it highly performant for handling millions of connections but unsuitable for tasks like URL-based routing or SSL termination.
- C. Incorrect.
The Classic Load Balancer (CLB) supports both layer 4 and layer 7 features but is considered legacy and lacks advanced capabilities like WebSocket support or efficient URL-based routing.
- D. Incorrect.
AWS Global Accelerator is not a load balancer but rather a global routing service that provides static IP addresses and optimizes traffic to endpoints across AWS Regions. It does not handle SSL termination or URL-based routing.