Load Balancers

AWS Load Balancer Controller

The ALB/NLB Controller provisions AWS load balancers from Kubernetes Ingress and Service resources.

Install via Helm

helm repo add eks https://aws.github.io/eks-charts
helm repo update

helm install aws-load-balancer-controller eks/aws-load-balancer-controller \
  --namespace kube-system \
  --set clusterName=my-cluster \
  --set serviceAccount.annotations."eks\.amazonaws\.com/role-arn"=arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/AWSLoadBalancerControllerRole

ALB Ingress

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: api-ingress
  namespace: production
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: alb
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/scheme: internet-facing
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/target-type: ip
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/certificate-arn: arn:aws:acm:ap-southeast-1:123456789012:certificate/xxx
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/ssl-policy: ELBSecurityPolicy-TLS13-1-2-2021-06
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/listen-ports: '[{"HTTP": 80}, {"HTTPS": 443}]'
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/ssl-redirect: "443"
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/healthcheck-path: /healthz
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/group.name: production   # share ALB across Ingresses
spec:
  rules:
    - host: api.example.com
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: api-service
                port:
                  number: 80

NLB for TCP/UDP

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: game-server
  namespace: production
  annotations:
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-type: external
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-nlb-target-type: ip
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-scheme: internet-facing
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
    - port: 7777
      targetPort: 7777
      protocol: UDP
  selector:
    app: game-server

ALB vs NLB

Feature	ALB	NLB
Layer	7 (HTTP/HTTPS)	4 (TCP/UDP/TLS)
Routing	Path, host, header	IP, port
WebSocket	Yes	Yes
gRPC	Yes	Yes
Static IP	No (use Global Accelerator)	Yes
Price	Per LCU	Per NLCU