The management of traffic distribution across an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) is a critical component in ensuring efficient, reliable, and scalable application delivery. ELBs automatically distribute incoming traffic to multiple targets, which could be EC2 instances, containers, or IP addresses. This approach helps in balancing the load, ensuring that no single resource is overwhelmed by excessive requests.

Key Traffic Distribution Methods:

  • Round Robin: Distributes traffic evenly to all available targets.
  • Least Connections: Routes traffic to the target with the fewest active connections.
  • IP Hashing: Routes traffic based on the IP address of the client.

Traffic Routing Process Overview:

  1. Client sends a request to the ELB.
  2. ELB evaluates the target's availability and health status.
  3. Traffic is directed to the appropriate target based on the chosen routing method.

The effectiveness of traffic distribution relies heavily on proper configuration of target groups and load balancing algorithms to ensure high availability and optimal performance.

Here's a simplified table outlining the types of ELB traffic distribution strategies:

Method Routing Mechanism Use Case
Round Robin Distributes traffic evenly Balanced traffic across identical instances
Least Connections Directs traffic to the least-loaded instance Scenarios with varying instance performance
IP Hashing Routes traffic based on the client's IP Session persistence requirements