A network endpoint group (NEG) is a configuration object that specifies a group of backend endpoints or services. A common use case for this configuration is deploying services in containers. You can also distribute traffic in a granular fashion to applications running on your backend instances.
You can use NEGs as backends for some load balancers.
Zonal and internet NEGs define how endpoints should be reached, whether they are reachable, and where they are located. Unlike these NEG types, serverless NEGs don't contain endpoints.
A zonal NEG contains one or more endpoints that can be Compute Engine VMs or
services running on the VMs. Each endpoint is specified as an IP:port
combination.
An internet NEG contains a single endpoint that is hosted outside of
Google Cloud. This endpoint is specified by hostname FQDN:port
or
IP:port
.
A serverless NEG points to Cloud Run, App Engine, Cloud Functions services residing in the same region as the NEG.
For more information about zonal, internet, and serverless NEGs, see:
- Zonal network endpoint groups overview
- Internet network endpoint groups overview
- Serverless network endpoint groups overview