HTTP(S) Load Balancer (Layer 7) in GCP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Create a Basic HTTP(S) Load Balancer on GCP

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a simple web service on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). To distribute incoming web traffic evenly and securely, you want to create an HTTP(S) Load Balancer. This will help your users get fast and reliable access to your website.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic HTTP(S) Load Balancer on GCP that routes traffic to a backend service with an instance group.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a backend service named my-backend-service

Create a URL map named my-url-map that routes all traffic to the backend service

Create a target HTTP proxy named my-http-proxy linked to the URL map

Create a global forwarding rule named my-forwarding-rule that listens on port 80 and directs traffic to the target HTTP proxy

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

HTTP(S) Load Balancers are used to distribute web traffic across multiple servers to improve availability and performance.

💼 Career

Understanding how to configure load balancers on cloud platforms like GCP is essential for cloud engineers and infrastructure specialists.

1

Create the backend service

Write a gcloud command to create a backend service called my-backend-service with the protocol set to HTTP.

GCP

# Your gcloud command here to create backend service

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute backend-services create with the name my-backend-service and specify --protocol=HTTP and --global for a global load balancer.

2

Create the URL map

Write a gcloud command to create a URL map named my-url-map that sends all requests to the backend service my-backend-service.

GCP

gcloud compute backend-services create my-backend-service --protocol=HTTP --global
# Your gcloud command here to create URL map

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute url-maps create with the name my-url-map and set --default-service to my-backend-service.

3

Create the target HTTP proxy

Write a gcloud command to create a target HTTP proxy named my-http-proxy that uses the URL map my-url-map.

GCP

gcloud compute backend-services create my-backend-service --protocol=HTTP --global
gcloud compute url-maps create my-url-map --default-service my-backend-service
# Your gcloud command here to create target HTTP proxy

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute target-http-proxies create with the name my-http-proxy and link it to my-url-map using --url-map.

4

Create the global forwarding rule

Write a gcloud command to create a global forwarding rule named my-forwarding-rule that listens on port 80 and directs traffic to the target HTTP proxy my-http-proxy.

GCP

gcloud compute backend-services create my-backend-service --protocol=HTTP --global
gcloud compute url-maps create my-url-map --default-service my-backend-service
gcloud compute target-http-proxies create my-http-proxy --url-map=my-url-map
# Your gcloud command here to create global forwarding rule

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute forwarding-rules create with the name my-forwarding-rule, specify --global, set --target-http-proxy to my-http-proxy, and listen on port 80 with --ports=80.