Load balancer types comparison in GCP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Load Balancer Types Comparison in GCP

📖 Scenario: You are working as a cloud engineer for a company that wants to understand different types of load balancers available in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). They want a simple programmatic way to compare the main types of load balancers by their key features.

🎯 Goal: Create a Python dictionary that holds the main GCP load balancer types as keys and their key features as values. Then add a configuration variable to select a load balancer type. Next, write code to extract the features of the selected load balancer. Finally, complete the code by adding a summary dictionary entry for all load balancers.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called load_balancers with these exact keys: 'HTTP(S) Load Balancer', 'TCP Proxy Load Balancer', 'SSL Proxy Load Balancer', 'Network Load Balancer'

Each key must map to a list of exactly these features (strings):

- HTTP(S) Load Balancer: 'Global', 'Layer 7', 'Supports HTTP and HTTPS'

- TCP Proxy Load Balancer: 'Global', 'Layer 4', 'TCP traffic only'

- SSL Proxy Load Balancer: 'Global', 'Layer 4', 'SSL traffic only'

- Network Load Balancer: 'Regional', 'Layer 4', 'TCP and UDP traffic'

Create a variable called selected_lb and set it to the string 'HTTP(S) Load Balancer'

Write code to get the features list for the selected_lb from load_balancers and store it in a variable called features

Add a new dictionary entry to load_balancers with key 'Summary' and value as a list of all load balancer keys except 'Summary'

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Cloud engineers often need to compare and document different cloud services to choose the right one for their applications.

💼 Career

Understanding load balancer types and their features is essential for designing scalable and reliable cloud architectures.

1

Create the load balancers dictionary

Create a dictionary called load_balancers with these exact keys and values: 'HTTP(S) Load Balancer' mapped to ['Global', 'Layer 7', 'Supports HTTP and HTTPS'], 'TCP Proxy Load Balancer' mapped to ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'TCP traffic only'], 'SSL Proxy Load Balancer' mapped to ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'SSL traffic only'], and 'Network Load Balancer' mapped to ['Regional', 'Layer 4', 'TCP and UDP traffic'].

GCP

# Create the load_balancers dictionary with the specified keys and values
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a Python dictionary with the exact keys and list values as specified.

2

Add selected load balancer variable

Create a variable called selected_lb and set it to the string 'HTTP(S) Load Balancer'.

GCP

load_balancers = {
    'HTTP(S) Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 7', 'Supports HTTP and HTTPS'],
    'TCP Proxy Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'TCP traffic only'],
    'SSL Proxy Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'SSL traffic only'],
    'Network Load Balancer': ['Regional', 'Layer 4', 'TCP and UDP traffic']
}
# Create the selected_lb variable and set it to 'HTTP(S) Load Balancer'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the exact string to the variable selected_lb.

3

Extract features of selected load balancer

Write code to get the features list for the load balancer stored in selected_lb from the load_balancers dictionary and store it in a variable called features.

GCP

load_balancers = {
    'HTTP(S) Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 7', 'Supports HTTP and HTTPS'],
    'TCP Proxy Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'TCP traffic only'],
    'SSL Proxy Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'SSL traffic only'],
    'Network Load Balancer': ['Regional', 'Layer 4', 'TCP and UDP traffic']
}
selected_lb = 'HTTP(S) Load Balancer'
# Get the features list for selected_lb and store in features
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use dictionary access with the variable selected_lb as the key.

4

Add summary entry to load balancers dictionary

Add a new dictionary entry to load_balancers with the key 'Summary' and the value as a list of all load balancer keys except 'Summary' itself.

GCP

load_balancers = {
    'HTTP(S) Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 7', 'Supports HTTP and HTTPS'],
    'TCP Proxy Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'TCP traffic only'],
    'SSL Proxy Load Balancer': ['Global', 'Layer 4', 'SSL traffic only'],
    'Network Load Balancer': ['Regional', 'Layer 4', 'TCP and UDP traffic']
}
selected_lb = 'HTTP(S) Load Balancer'
features = load_balancers[selected_lb]
# Add a 'Summary' key to load_balancers with a list of all load balancer keys except 'Summary'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list comprehension to get all keys except 'Summary' and assign it to load_balancers['Summary'].