nginxproxygoogle-cloud-platformload-balancinghaproxy

What is pass-through load balancer? How is it different from proxy load balancer?


Google Cloud Network load balancer is a pass-through load balancer and not a proxy load balancer. ( https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/load-balancing/network/ ).

I can not find any resources in general on a pass through LB. Both HAProxy and Nginx seems to be proxy LBs. I'm guessing that pass through LB would be redirecting the clients directly to the servers. In what scenarios it would be beneficial?

Are there any other type of load balancers except pass-through and proxy?


Solution

  • It's hard to find resources for pass-through load balancing because everyone came up with a different way of calling it: pass-though, direct server return(DSR), direct routing,...

    We'll call it pass-through here.

    Let me try to explain the thing:

    Regarding other load balancer types there can't be a definitive list, here are a few examples:

    As for the advantages of pass-through over other methods: