Listener Overview

A listener in a load balancer monitors incoming connection requests on a specified protocol and port, serving as the entry point for traffic before directing it to backend servers.

When configuring a listener, it's important to specify the protocol (such as TCP or UDP) and the appropriate port number. After receiving incoming requests, the load balancer distributes the traffic based on the listener's rules to one or more backend servers, which process and respond to the requests. Properly configuring listeners is essential for efficient traffic management and maintaining the security and performance of your application.

Application Scenarios

Load balancer listeners define how traffic is received and forwarded. Common application scenarios include:

• Internet-Facing Access Listeners bound to public IPs handle traffic from the internet, such as web or API access.

• Internal Service Access Listeners bound to private IPs distribute traffic within a VPC for internal services.

• Protocol-Specific Traffic Handling TCP listeners are used for reliable connections (e.g., file transfer, databases). UDP listeners are used for latency-sensitive workloads (e.g., real-time streaming).

• Traffic Segmentation Different listeners can be configured for different ports, protocols, or access scopes to isolate traffic.

Key Features

• Protocol and Port Configuration Specify protocols like TCP or UDP with a specific port to accurately manage incoming connections.

• Traffic Distribution Efficiently distribute incoming requests across multiple backend servers based on predefined rules.

• Scalability Seamlessly handle increased load by balancing requests across additional servers.

• Security Management Enhance application security by managing and restricting connections at the entry point.

• Performance Optimization Ensure high performance and low latency by optimizing traffic flow to backend resources.