Load Balancer Integrations

Bit the Chipmunk, AWS Expert published on
4 min, 740 words

Load balancers seldom operate entirely on their own — they integrate with a host of other AWS services. Let's dive into the details on some of the most important integrations for the Advanced Networking Specialty exam!

🌍 1. Route 53 — The Traffic Director

Integration purpose: DNS-based routing to load balancers.

  • Route 53 maps domain names to ALB/NLB DNS names (CNAME or alias).

  • Alias records are preferred — no cost, native AWS integration, and automatic updates when LB IPs change.

  • Supports routing policies for resilience and performance:

    • Failover: Send traffic to standby region/LB when health check fails.
    • Weighted: Gradually shift traffic between LBs (e.g., blue/green deployments).
    • Latency-based: Route clients to the lowest-latency region.
    • Geolocation / GeoProximity: Control user placement by region.

  • ✅ Exam trigger: “Traffic must fail over automatically if Region A is down.” → Route 53 + Health Checks + alias record.

🚀 2. AWS Global Accelerator — Global Anycast Entry Point

Integration purpose: Improve performance and availability for global users.

  • Provides static anycast IPs that route users to the nearest healthy AWS edge location.
  • Integrates directly with ALB, NLB, or EC2 as endpoints.
  • Health checks run continuously across regions.
  • Reduces DNS caching issues, because clients connect to the same IPs, not region-specific DNS.
  • Supports traffic dials for gradual cutovers between regions (e.g., migration, testing).
  • ✅ Exam trigger: “Users in multiple continents; DNS caching causes imbalance.” → Use Global Accelerator, not Route 53 latency routing.

☁️ 3. CloudFront — Edge Caching and TLS Offload

Integration purpose: Content delivery and security at the edge.

  • CloudFront sits in front of ALB/NLB to cache content and terminate TLS.
  • Reduces load on backend and accelerates global response time.
  • Protects backend from DDoS via AWS Shield Standard (included).
  • Integrates with WAF and ACM for layered protection.
  • ✅ Exam trigger: “Static + dynamic content; global users; minimize latency.” → Use CloudFront in front of ALB.

🔒 4. AWS WAF — Web Layer Security Shield

Integration purpose: Protect web apps from malicious HTTP(S) traffic.

  • Attaches directly to ALB, CloudFront, or API Gateway.
  • Filters at Layer 7 (HTTP) with managed rules (SQLi, XSS, bots, etc.).
  • You can combine WAF + ALB for app-level filtering inside a VPC, or WAF + CloudFront for global edge filtering.
  • ✅ Exam trigger: “Need to block malicious requests before reaching app.” → WAF at ALB or CloudFront.

🔑 5. AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) — TLS Simplified

Integration purpose: Manage and deploy SSL/TLS certificates.

  • Directly integrates with ALB, NLB (TLS listeners), and CloudFront.
  • Issues free public certificates for AWS-managed domains.
  • Automatically renews certificates — no manual rotation.
  • Private certificates (ACM PCA) can secure internal ALBs/NLBs.
  • ✅ Exam trigger: “Need automatic certificate renewal and rotation.” → Use ACM with LB listener.

☸️ 6. Amazon EKS / ECS — Container Service Integration

Integration purpose: Route traffic to containers managed by AWS.

For EKS (Kubernetes):

  • Use AWS Load Balancer Controller to automatically provision ALB/NLB for Kubernetes Ingress or Service objects.
  • Supports Ingress routing rules and target group binding.
  • Uses service annotations to control LB type (internal vs. internet-facing).

For ECS (Fargate or EC2):

  • Integrates directly with ALB/NLB target groups.
  • ALB routes HTTP/S traffic to ECS tasks using dynamic port mapping.
  • NLB supports TCP-based ECS services for high-throughput workloads.
  • ✅ Exam trigger: “ECS service must scale dynamically behind an ALB.” → Use ALB with dynamic port mapping.

🧱 7. Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) — The Traffic Inspector

Integration purpose: Centralized ingress/egress for network inspection.

  • Integrates with third-party appliances (firewalls, IDS/IPS) via GWLB endpoints (GWLBe).
  • Routes traffic transparently to inspection layer before reaching ALB/NLB or EC2.
  • Works across VPCs using PrivateLink.
  • ✅ Exam trigger: “Traffic must be inspected before reaching workloads.” → Use GWLB + GWLBe in inspection VPC.

🧩 8. Putting It All Together

IntegrationMain PurposeCommon PairingExam Tip
Route 53DNS-based routing, failoverALB/NLB“Alias record for LB DNS name.”
Global AcceleratorGlobal entry point, performanceALB/NLB“Static IPs, multi-region app.”
CloudFrontEdge caching & TLS offloadALB“Reduce origin load, add Shield/WAF.”
WAFWeb app protectionALB / CloudFront“Block malicious HTTP requests.”
ACMSSL/TLS lifecycleALB / NLB / CloudFront“Automatic cert renewal.”
EKS/ECSService discoveryALB/NLB“Dynamic scaling for containers.”
GWLBCentral inspectionNLB or PrivateLink“Inspect before reaching app.”

💡 Bit’s Final Exam Tips

  • “Traffic from multiple countries needs static IPs” → Global Accelerator.
  • “Need to block SQL injection at edge” → CloudFront + WAF.
  • “Internal microservices over HTTPS” → Private ALB + ACM PCA.
  • “Dynamic container ports” → ALB + ECS Service discovery.
  • “Traffic must be inspected before backend” → GWLB + PrivateLink.
  • “Failover to backup region” → Route 53 Failover Policy.