Setting up a load balancer with Cloud Run (fully managed), App Engine, or Cloud Functions

A network endpoint group (NEG) specifies a group of backend endpoints for a load balancer. A serverless NEG is a backend that points to a Cloud Run, App Engine, or Cloud Functions service.

A serverless NEG can represent:

• A Cloud Run service or a group of services sharing the same URL pattern.
• A Cloud Functions function or a group of functions sharing the same URL pattern.
• An App Engine app (Standard or Flex), a specific service within an app, or even a specific version of an app.

This page shows you how to create an external HTTP(S) load balancer to route requests to serverless backends. Here the term serverless refers to the following serverless compute products: App Engine, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Run (fully managed).

Serverless NEGs allow you to use Google Cloud serverless apps with external HTTP(S) Load Balancing. After you configure a load balancer with the serverless NEG backend, requests to the load balancer are routed to the serverless app backend.

If you want to learn more about Serverless NEGs, read the Serverless NEGs overview.

Before you begin

1. Deploy a App Engine, Cloud Functions, or Cloud Run (fully managed) service.
2. If you haven't already done so, install Google Cloud SDK.
3. Configure permissions.
4. Add an SSL certificate resource.

Deploy an App Engine, Cloud Functions, or Cloud Run (fully managed) service

The instructions on this page assume you already have a Cloud Run (fully managed), Cloud Functions, or App Engine service running.

For the example on this page, we have used the Cloud Run (fully managed) Python quickstart to deploy a Cloud Run (fully managed) service in the us-central1 region. The rest of this page shows you how to set up an external HTTP(S) load balancer that uses a serverless NEG backend to route requests to this service.

If you haven't already deployed a serverless app, or if you want to try a serverless NEG with a sample app, use one of the following quickstarts. You can create a serverless app in any region, but you must use the same region later on to create the serverless NEG and load balancer.

Cloud Run (fully managed)

To create a simple Hello World application, package it into a container image, and then deploy the container image to Cloud Run (fully managed), see Quickstart: Build and Deploy.

If you already have a sample container uploaded to the Container Registry, see Quickstart: Deploy a Prebuilt Sample Container.

Cloud Functions

See Cloud Functions: Python Quickstart.

App Engine

See the following App Engine quickstart guides for Python 3:

• Standard Environment
• Flexible Environment

Install Google Cloud SDK

Install the gcloud command-line tool. See gcloud Overview for conceptual and installation information about the tool.

If you haven't run the gcloud command-line tool previously, first run gcloud init to initialize your gcloud directory.

Configure permissions

To follow this guide, you need to create a serverless NEG and create an external HTTP(S) load balancer in a project. You should be either a project owner or editor, or you should have the following Compute Engine IAM roles:

Task	Required Role
Create load balancer and networking components	Network Admin
Create and modify NEGs	Compute Instance Admin
Create and modify SSL certificates	Security Admin

Reserving an external IP address

Now that your services are up and running, set up a global static external IP address that your customers use to reach your load balancer.

Note: This step is required for this example, and recommended in general, because a static external IP address provides a single address to point your serverless app to. Reserving an IP address is also essential if you are using a custom domain for your serverless app (also required for Google-managed SSL certificates). With a custom domain, you will need to update your DNS records to point your domain to this IP address.

Console

1. Go to the External IP addresses page in the Google Cloud Console.
   Go to the External IP addresses page
2. Click Reserve static address to reserve an IPv4 address.
3. Assign a Name of example-ip.
4. Set the Network tier to Premium.
5. Set the IP version to IPv4.
6. Set the Type to Global.
7. Click Reserve.

gcloud

gcloud compute addresses create example-ip \
    --ip-version=IPV4 \
    --global

Note the IPv4 address that was reserved:

gcloud compute addresses describe example-ip \
    --format="get(address)" \
    --global

Creating an SSL certificate resource

To create an HTTPS load balancer, you must add an SSL certificate resource to the load balancer's front end. Create an SSL certificate resource using either a Google-managed SSL certificate or a self-managed SSL certificate.

• Google-managed certificates. Using Google-managed certificates is recommended because Google Cloud obtains, manages, and renews these certificates automatically. To create a Google-managed certificate, you must have a domain and the DNS records for that domain in order for the certificate to be provisioned. If you don't already have a domain, you can get one from Google Domains. Additionally, you will need to update the domain's DNS A record to point to the load balancer's IP address created in the previous step (example-ip). For detailed instructions, see Using Google-managed certificates.

• Self-signed certificates. If you do not want to set up a domain at this time, you can use a self-signed SSL certificate for testing.

Warning: Don't use a self-signed certificate for production purposes.

This example assumes that you have already created an SSL certificate resource.

If you want to test this process without creating an SSL certificate resource (or a domain as required by Google-managed certificates), you can still use the instructions on this page to set up an HTTP load balancer instead.

Creating the external HTTP(S) load balancer

In the following diagram, the load balancer uses a serverless NEG backend to direct requests to a serverless Cloud Run (fully managed) service. For this example, we have used the Cloud Run (fully managed) Python quickstart to deploy a Cloud Run (fully managed) service.

HTTPS Load Balancing for a Cloud Run app

Because health checks are not supported for backend services with serverless NEG backends, you don't need to create a firewall rule allowing health checks if the load balancer has only serverless NEG backends.

Console

Naming your load balancer

1. Go to the Load balancing page in the Google Cloud Console.
   Go to the Load balancing page
2. Under HTTP(S) Load Balancing, click Start configuration.
3. Under Internet facing or internal only, select From Internet to my VMs.
4. Click Continue.
5. For the Name of the load balancer, enter serverless-lb.
6. Keep the window open to continue.

Configuring the backend services

1. Click Backend configuration.
2. In the Create or select a backend service drop-down menu, hold the mouse pointer over Backend services, and then select Create a backend service.
3. Enter a Name.
4. Under Backend type, select Serverless network endpoint group.
5. Leave Protocol unchanged. This parameter is ignored.
6. Under Backends, in the New backend window, select Create Serverless network endpoint group.
7. Enter a Name.
8. Under Region, select us-central1. Then select Cloud Run.
9. Select Select service name.
10. From the Service dropdown, select the Cloud Run (fully managed) service that you want to create a load balancer for.
11. Click Create.
12. Under the New backend window, click Done.
13. Click Create.

Configuring host rules and path matchers

Host rules and path matchers are configuration components of an external HTTP(S) load balancer's URL map.

1. Click Host and path rules.
2. Retain the default hosts and paths. For this example, all requests go to the backend service created in the previous step.

Configuring the frontend

1. Click Frontend configuration.
2. Enter a Name.
   

3. To create an HTTPS load balancer, you must have an SSL certificate (gcloud compute ssl-certificates list). We recommend using a Google-managed certificate as described previously. To configure an external HTTP(S) load balancer, fill in the fields as follows.

   Verify the following options are configured with these values:

   Property	Value (type a value or select an option as specified)
   Protocol	HTTPS
   Network Service Tier	Premium
   IP version	IPv4
   IP address	example-ip
   Port	443
   Certificate	Select an existing SSL certificate or create a new certificate. To create an HTTPS load balancer, you must have an SSL certificate resource to use in the HTTPS proxy. You can create an SSL certificate resource using either a Google-managed SSL certificate or a self-managed SSL certificate. To create a Google-managed certificate, you must have a domain. The domain’s A record must resolve to the IP address of the load balancer (in this example, example-ip). Using Google-managed certificates is recommended because Google Cloud obtains, manages, and renews these certificates automatically. If you do not have a domain, you can use a self-signed SSL certificate for testing.

   If you want to test this process without setting up an SSL certificate resource (or a domain as required by Google-managed certificates), you can set up an HTTP load balancer.
   
   To create an HTTP load balancer, verify that the following options are configured with these values:

   Property	Value (type a value or select an option as specified)
   Protocol	HTTP
   Network Service Tier	Premium
   IP version	IPv4
   IP address	example-ip
   Port	80

4. Click Done.

Reviewing the configuration

1. Click Review and finalize.
2. Review the Backend, Host and Path rules, and Frontend.
3. Click Create.
4. Wait for the load balancer to be created.
5. Click the name of the load balancer (serverless-lb).
6. Note the IP address of the load balancer for the next task. It's referred to as IP_ADDRESS.

Note: When you use the Google Cloud Console to create an HTTP(S) load balancer with a serverless NEG backend, logging is enabled by default. You can use the gcloud compute backend-services update command to disable logging if needed.

gcloud

1. Create a serverless NEG for your serverless app. To create a serverless NEG with a Cloud Run (fully managed) service:

   gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups create SERVERLESS_NEG_NAME \
       --region=us-central1 \
       --network-endpoint-type=serverless  \
       --cloud-run-service=CLOUD_RUN_SERVICE_NAME
   

   For more options, see the gcloud reference guide for gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups create.
2. Create a backend service.

   gcloud compute backend-services create BACKEND_SERVICE_NAME \
       --global
   

3. Add the serverless NEG as a backend to the backend service:

   gcloud compute backend-services add-backend BACKEND_SERVICE_NAME \
       --global \
       --network-endpoint-group=SERVERLESS_NEG_NAME \
       --network-endpoint-group-region=us-central1
   

4. Create a URL map to route incoming requests to the backend service:

   gcloud compute url-maps create URL_MAP_NAME \
       --default-service BACKEND_SERVICE_NAME
   

   This example URL map only targets one backend service representing a single serverless app, so we don’t need to set up host rules or path matchers. If you have more than one backend service, you can use host rules to direct requests to different services based on the host name, and you can set up path matchers to direct requests to different services based on the request path.

5. Create a target HTTP(S) proxy to route requests to your URL map.
   
   

   For an HTTP load balancer, create an HTTP target proxy:

     gcloud compute target-http-proxies create TARGET_HTTP_PROXY_NAME 
   
       --url-map=URL_MAP_NAME
     

   For an HTTPS load balancer, create an HTTPS target proxy. The proxy is the portion of the load balancer that holds the SSL certificate for HTTPS Load Balancing, so you also load your certificate in this step.

   gcloud compute target-https-proxies create TARGET_HTTPS_PROXY_NAME \
       --ssl-certificates=www-ssl-cert \
       --url-map=URL_MAP_NAME
   

6. Create a global forwarding rule to route incoming requests to the proxy.
   
   

   For an HTTP load balancer:

   gcloud compute forwarding-rules create HTTP_FORWARDING_RULE_NAME \
       --address=example-ip \
       --target-http-proxy=TARGET_HTTP_PROXY_NAME \
       --global \
       --ports=80
   

   For an HTTPS load balancer:

   gcloud compute forwarding-rules create HTTPS_FORWARDING_RULE_NAME \
       --address=example-ip \
       --target-https-proxy=TARGET_HTTPS_PROXY_NAME \
       --global \
       --ports=443
   

Updating your domain's DNS records to use the load balancer's IP address

Note: This step is required if your serverless compute apps are being mapped to custom domains. It is also required if you created an HTTPS load balancer with a Google-managed certificate (which requires a domain).

If you haven't already done so, update your domain's DNS A or AAAA record to point to the load balancer's IP address so that traffic sent to the existing custom domain URLs is routed through the load balancer instead.

For example, if you have a custom domain of example.com and all your services are mapped to this domain, you should update the DNS A or AAAA record for example.com to point to the load balancer's IP address.

Before updating the DNS records, you can test your configuration locally by forcing local DNS resolution of the custom domain to the load balancer's IP address. To test locally, either modify the /etc/hosts/ file on your local machine to point example.com to the load balancer's IP address, or, use the curl --resolve flag to force curl to use the load balancer's IP address for the request.

When the DNS record for example.com resolves to the HTTPS load balancer’s IP address, requests sent to example.com begin to be routed via the load balancer. The load balancer dispatches them to the relevant backend service according to its URL map. Additionally, if the backend service is configured with a URL mask, the serverless NEG uses the mask to route the request to the appropriate Cloud Run (fully managed), Cloud Functions, or App Engine service.

If you use Google-managed certificates, migrating an existing service to an external HTTP(S) load balancer may incur some downtime, typically less than an hour. This is because the SSL certificate for your external HTTP(S) load balancer won’t be provisioned until you update your DNS records to point to the load balancer’s IP address.

Note: If you are considering migrating a production Cloud Run (fully managed) service with a custom domain to an HTTPS load balancer, we recommend testing the load balancer configuration thoroughly beforehand. For example, consider deploying a separate HTTP load balancer to test the serverless NEG setup before making any DNS record changes to your production deployment. For more information about managing custom domains for Cloud Run (fully managed), see Mapping custom domains.

Testing the load balancer

Now that you have configured your load balancer, you can start sending traffic to the load balancer's IP address. If you configured a domain, you can send traffic to the domain name as well. However, DNS propagation can take time to complete so you can start by using the IP address for testing.

1. Go to the Load balancing page in the Google Cloud Console.
   Go to the Load balancing page
2. Click on the load balancer you just created.
3. Note the IP Address of the load balancer.
4. For an HTTP load balancer, you can test your load balancer using a web browser by going to http://IP_ADDRESS. Replace IP_ADDRESS with the load balancer's IP address. You should be directed to the helloworld service homepage.
   

5. For an HTTPS load balancer, you can test your load balancer using a web browser by going to https://IP_ADDRESS. Replace IP_ADDRESS with the load balancer's IP address. You should be directed to the helloworld service homepage.
   

   If that does not work and you are using a Google-managed certificate, confirm that your certificate resource's status is ACTIVE. For more information, see Google-managed SSL certificate resource status.
   

   If you used a self-signed certificate for testing, your browser displays a warning. You must explicitly instruct your browser to accept a self-signed certificate. Click through the warning to see the actual page.

Additional configuration options

This section expands on the configuration example to provide alternative and additional configuration options. All of the tasks are optional. You can perform them in any order.

Setting up multi-region load balancing

Note: Multi-region load balancing is supported only for serverless NEGs with Cloud Run (fully managed) and Cloud Functions backends.

In the example described above we have only one Cloud Run (fully managed) service serving as the backend. Because the serverless NEG can only point to one endpoint at a time, load balancing isn't actually performed. The external HTTP(S) load balancer serves as the frontend only, and it proxies traffic to the specified helloworld app endpoint. However, you might want to serve your Cloud Run (fully managed) app from more than one region to improve your service’s availability as well as to improve latency for users.

If a backend service contains several NEGs, the load balancer balances traffic by forwarding requests to the serverless NEG in the closest available region. However, backend services can only contain one serverless NEG per region. To make your Cloud Run (fully managed) service available from multiple regions you will need to set up cross-region routing. You should be able to use a single URL scheme that works anywhere in the world, yet serves user requests from the region closest to the user. If the closest region is unavailable or is short on capacity, the request will be routed to a different region.

To set up multi-region serving, you will need to use the Premium network tier to ensure that all the regional Cloud Run (fully managed) deployments are compatible and ready to serve traffic from any region.

To set up a multi-region load balancer:

1. Set up two Cloud Run (fully managed) services in different regions. Let's assume you have deployed two Cloud Run (fully managed) services: one to a region in Europe, and another to a region in the US.
2. Create an external HTTP(S) load balancer with the following setup:
   1. Set up a global backend service with two serverless NEGs.
      1. Create the first NEG in the same region as the Cloud Run service deployed in Europe.
      2. Create the second NEG in the same region as the Cloud Run service deployed in the US.
   2. Set up your frontend configuration with the Premium network tier.

The rest of the setup can be the same as described previously. Your resulting setup should look like this:

Multi-region routing for serverless apps (with failover)

Setting up regional routing

A common reason for serving applications from multiple regions is to meet data locality requirements. For example, you might want to ensure that requests made by European users are always served from a region located in Europe. To set this up you need a URL schema with separate URLs for EU and non-EU users, and direct your EU users to the EU URLs.

In such a scenario, you would use the URL map to route requests from specific URLs to their corresponding regions. With such a setup, requests meant for one region are never delivered to a different region. This provides isolation between regions. On the other hand, when a region fails, requests are not routed to a different region. So this setup does not increase your service’s availability.

To set up regional routing, you will need to use the Premium network tier so that you can combine different regions in a single forwarding rule.

To set up a load balancer with regional routing:

1. Set up two Cloud Run (fully managed) services in different regions. Let's assume you have deployed two Cloud Run (fully managed) services: hello-world-eu to a region in Europe, and hello-world-us to a region in the US.
2. Create an external HTTP(S) load balancer with the following setup:
   1. Set up a backend service with a serverless NEG in Europe. The serverless NEG must be created in the same region as the Cloud Run (fully managed) service deployed in Europe.
   2. Set up a second backend service with another serverless NEG in the US. This serverless NEG must be created in the same region as the Cloud Run service deployed in the US.
   3. Set up your URL map with the appropriate host and path rules so that one set of URLs routes to the European backend service while all the requests route to the US backend service.
   4. Set up your frontend configuration with the Premium network tier.

The rest of the setup can be the same as described previously. Your resulting setup should look like this:

Regional routing for serverless apps (no failover)

Using a URL mask

When creating a serverless NEG, instead of selecting a specific Cloud Run (fully managed) service, you can use a URL mask to point to multiple services serving at the same domain. A URL mask is a template of your URL schema. The serverless NEG will use this template to extract the service name from the incoming request's URL and map the request to the appropriate service.

URL masks are particularly useful if your service is mapped to a custom domain rather than the default address that Google Cloud provides for the deployed service. A URL mask allows you to target multiple services and versions with a single rule even when your application is using a custom URL pattern.

If you haven't already done so, make sure you read Serverless NEGS overview: URL Masks.

Constructing a URL mask

To construct a URL mask for your load balancer, start with the URL of your service. For this example, we will use a sample serverless app running at https://example.com/login. This is the URL where the app's login service will be served.

1. Remove the http or https from the URL. You are left with example.com/login.
2. Replace the service name with a placeholder for the URL mask.
   1. Cloud Run (fully managed): Replace the Cloud Run (fully managed) service name with the placeholder <service>. If the Cloud Run (fully managed) service has a tag associated with it, replace the tag name with the placeholder <tag>. In this example, the URL mask you are left with is, example.com/<service>.
   2. Cloud Functions: Replace the function name with the placeholder <function>. In this example, the URL mask you are left with is, <function>.example.com.
   3. App Engine: Replace the service name with the placeholder <service>. If the service has a version associated with it, replace the version with the placeholder <version>. In this example, the URL mask you are left with is, example.com/<service>.

3. (Optional) If the service name (or function, version, or tag) can be extracted from the path portion of the URL,the domain can be omitted. The path part of the URL mask is distinguished by the first / character. If a / is not present in the URL mask, the mask is understood to represent the host only. Therefore, for this example, the URL mask can be reduced to /<service> or /<function>.

   Similarly, if the service name can be extracted from the host part of the URL, you can omit the path altogether from the URL mask.

   You can also omit any host or subdomain components that come before the first placeholder as well as any path components that come after the last placeholder. In such cases, the placeholder captures the required information for the component.

Here are a few more examples that demonstrate these rules:

Cloud Run

This table assumes that you have a custom domain called example.com and all your Cloud Run (fully managed) services are being mapped to this domain.

Service, Tag name	Cloud Run (fully managed) custom domain URL	URL mask
service: login	https://login-home.example.com/web	<service>-home.example.com
service: login	https://example.com/login/web	example.com/<service> or /<service>
service: login, tag: test	https://test.login.example.com/web	<tag>.<service>.example.com
service: login, tag: test	https://example.com/home/login/test	example.com/home/<service>/<tag> or /home/<service>/<tag>
service: login, tag: test	https://test.example.com/home/login/web	<tag>.example.com/home/<service>

Cloud Functions

This table assumes that you have a custom domain called example.com and all your Cloud Functions services are being mapped to this domain.

Function Name	Cloud Functions custom domain URL	URL Mask
login	https://example.com/login	/<function>
login	https://example.com/home/login	/home/<function>
login	https://login.example.com	<function>.example.com
login	https://login.home.example.com	<function>.home.example.com

App Engine

This table assumes that you have a custom domain called example.com and all your App Engine services are being mapped to this domain.

Service name, version	App Engine custom domain URL	URL mask
service: login	https://login.example.com/web	<service>.example.com
service: login	https://example.com/home/login/web	example.com/home/<service>, or /home/<service>
service: login, version: test	https://test.example.com/login/web	<version>.example.com/<service>
service: login, version: test	https://example.com/login/test	example.com/<service>/<version>

Creating a serverless NEG with a URL mask

Console

For a new load balancer, you can use the same end to end process as described previously in this topic. When configuring the backend service, instead of selecting a specific service, enter a URL mask.

If you have an existing load balancer, you can edit the backend configuration and have the serverless NEG point to a URL mask instead of a specific service.

To add a URL mask-based serverless NEG to an existing backend service:

1. Go to the Load balancing page in the Google Cloud Console.
   Go to the Load balancing page
2. Click the name of the load balancer whose backend service you want to edit.
3. On the Load balancer details page, click Edit .
4. On the Edit HTTP(S) load balancer page, click Backend configuration.
5. On the Backend configuration page, click Edit for the backend service you want to modify.
6. Click Add backend.
7. Select Create Serverless network endpoint group.
   1. For the Name, enter helloworld-serverless-neg.
   2. Under Region, select us-central1.
   3. Under Serverless network endpoint group type, select the platform where your serverless apps (or services or functions) were created.
      1. Select Use URL Mask.
      2. Enter a URL mask. For instructions on how to create a URL mask, see Constructing a URL mask.
      3. Click Create.
8. Under the New backend window, click Done.
9. Click Update.

gcloud: Cloud Run

To create a Serverless NEG with a sample URL mask of example.com/<service>:

gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups create helloworld-neg-mask \
    --region=us-central1 \
    --network-endpoint-type=serverless \
    --cloud-run-url-mask="example.com/<service>"

gcloud: Cloud Functions

To create a Serverless NEG with a sample URL mask of example.com/<function>:

gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups create helloworld-neg-mask \
    --region=us-central1 \
    --network-endpoint-type=serverless \
    --cloud-function-url-mask="example.com/<function>"

gcloud: App Engine

To create a Serverless NEG with a sample URL mask of example.com/<service>:

gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups create helloworld-neg-mask \
    --region=us-central1 \
    --network-endpoint-type=serverless \
    --app-engine-url-mask="example.com/<service>"

To learn how the load balancer handles issues with URL mask mismatches, see Troubleshooting issues with serverless NEGs.

Moving your custom domain to be served by the external HTTP(S) load balancer

If your serverless compute apps are being mapped to custom domains, you might want to update your DNS records so that traffic sent to the existing Cloud Run (fully managed), Cloud Functions, or App Engine custom domain URLs is routed through the load balancer instead.

For example, if you have a custom domain called example.com and all your Cloud Run services are mapped to this domain, you should update the DNS record for example.com to point to the load balancer's IP address.

Before updating the DNS records, you can test your configuration locally by forcing local DNS resolution of the custom domain to the load balancer's IP address. To test locally, either modify the /etc/hosts/ file on your local machine to point example.com to the load balancer's IP address, or, use the curl --resolve flag to force curl to use the load balancer's IP address for the request.

When the DNS record for example.com resolves to the HTTP(S) load balancer’s IP address, requests sent to example.com begin to be routed via the load balancer. The load balancer dispatches them to the relevant backend service according to its URL map. Additionally, if the backend service is configured with a URL mask, the serverless NEG uses the mask to route the request to the appropriate Cloud Run (fully managed), Cloud Functions, or App Engine service.

Note: If you use Google-managed certificates, migrating an existing service to an external HTTP(S) load balancer may incur some downtime, typically less than an hour. This is because the SSL certificate for your external HTTP(S) load balancer won’t be provisioned until you update your DNS records to point to the load balancer’s IP address.

Enabling Cloud CDN

Enabling Cloud CDN for your Cloud Run (fully managed) service allows you to optimize content delivery by caching content close to your users.

You can enable Cloud CDN on the external HTTP(S) load balancer's backend service using the gcloud compute backend-services update command.

  gcloud compute backend-services update helloworld-backend-service \
    --enable-cdn \
    --global

Cloud CDN is supported for backend services with Cloud Run (fully managed), Cloud Functions, and App Engine backends.

Enabling Google Cloud Armor

Google Cloud Armor is a security product that provides protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to all GCLB proxy load balancers. Google Cloud Armor also provides configurable security policies to services accessed through an external HTTP(S) load balancer. To learn about Google Cloud Armor security policies for HTTP(S) Load Balancing, see Google Cloud Armor security policy overview.

If you are using Cloud Functions, you can ensure that requests sent to default URLs by using the internal-and-gclb ingress setting. If you are using Cloud Run (fully managed), you can ensure that requests sent to default URLs or any other custom domain set up through Cloud Run (fully managed) are blocked by restricting ingress to "internal and cloud load balancing". If you use App Engine, users can bypass the load balancer and go directly to the service URLs, circumventing any configured Google Cloud Armor security policies.

Enabling logging and monitoring

You can enable, disable, and view logs for an HTTP(S) Load Balancing backend service. When using the Google Cloud Console, logging is enabled by default for backend services with serverless NEG backends. You can use gcloud to disable logging for each backend service as needed. For instructions, see Logging.

HTTP(S) Load Balancing also exports monitoring data to Cloud Monitoring. Monitoring metrics can be used to evaluate a load balancer's configuration, usage, and performance. Metrics can also be used to troubleshoot problems and improve resource utilization and user experience. For instructions, see Monitoring.

Deleting a serverless NEG

A network endpoint group cannot be deleted if it is attached to a backend service. Before you delete a NEG, ensure that it is detached from the backend service.

To remove a serverless NEG from a backend service, you must specify the region where the NEG was created. You must also specify the --global flag because helloworld-backend-service is a global resource.

gcloud compute backend-services remove-backend helloworld-backend-service \
    --network-endpoint-group=helloworld-serverless-neg \
    --network-endpoint-group-region=us-central1 \
    --global

To delete the serverless NEG:

gcloud compute network-endpoint-groups delete helloworld-serverless-neg \
    --region=us-central1

What's next

• Using logging and monitoring
• Troubleshooting serverless NEGs issues
• Cleaning up the load balancer setup