This document helps you determine which Google Cloud load balancer best meets your needs.
To decide which load balancer best suits your implementation of Google Cloud, consider the following aspects of Cloud Load Balancing:
- Global versus regional load balancing
- External versus internal load balancing
- Traffic type
For more information about these aspects, see Load balancing overview.
Flow chart
After you determine whether you need global or regional load balancing, external or internal load balancing, and what traffic type your load balancers must handle, use the following flow chart to determine which load balancers are available for your client, protocol, and network configuration.
Geographic control over where TLS is terminated
The external HTTP(S) load balancer and SSL proxy load balancer terminate Transport Layer Security (TLS) in locations that are distributed globally, so as to minimize latency between clients and the load balancer. If you require geographic control over where TLS is terminated, you should use External TCP/UDP Network Load Balancing instead, and terminate TLS on backends that are located in regions appropriate to your needs.
Summary of Google Cloud load balancers
The following table provides some specific information about each load balancer.
| Load balancer type | Traffic type | Preserve Client IP | Global or regional | Load balancing scheme | Load balancer destination ports | Proxy or pass-through |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| External HTTP(S) | HTTP or HTTPS | No | Global* | EXTERNAL | HTTP on 80 or 8080; HTTPS on 443 | Proxy |
| Internal HTTP(S) | HTTP or HTTPS | No | Regional | INTERNAL_MANAGED | HTTP on 80 or 8080; HTTPS on 443 | Proxy |
| SSL Proxy | TCP with SSL offload | No | Global* | EXTERNAL | 25, 43, 110, 143, 195, 443, 465, 587, 700, 993, 995, 1883, 3389, 5222, 5432, 5671, 5672, 5900, 5901, 6379, 8085, 8099, 9092, 9200, and 9300 | Proxy |
| TCP Proxy | TCP without SSL offload | No | Global* | EXTERNAL | 25, 43, 110, 143, 195, 443, 465, 587, 700, 993, 995, 1883, 3389, 5222, 5432, 5671, 5672, 5900, 5901, 6379, 8085, 8099, 9092, 9200, and 9300 | Proxy |
| External TCP/UDP Network (also referred to as Network Load Balancing) |
TCP, UDP, ESP, or ICMP (Preview) | Yes | Regional | EXTERNAL | Any | Pass-through |
| Internal TCP/UDP | TCP or UDP | Yes | Regional backends, regional frontends (global access supported) | INTERNAL | Any | Pass-through |
What's next
- To select the appropriate load balancer based on your application needs, see Load balancer features.