Cloud Load Balancing documentation
Cloud Load Balancing allows you to put your resources behind a single IP address
that is externally accessible or internal to your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network.
Learn more
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Training
Training and tutorials
Learn how to create an Application Load Balancer to forward traffic to a custom URL map.
Training
Training and tutorials
External Application Load Balancer
Learn how to set up an external Application Load Balancer and how load balancing can help scale your applications on Compute Engine.
Training
Training and tutorials
External Application Load Balancer with Cloud Armor
Learn how to configure an external Application Load Balancer with global backends, stress test the load balancer, and denylist the stress test IP address with Cloud Armor.
Training
Training and tutorials
Network Load Balancer
Learn the differences between Network Load Balancers and Application Load Balancers and how to set them up for your applications running on Compute Engine virtual machines.
Training
Training and tutorials
Internal passthrough Network Load Balancer
Learn how to configure and test an internal load balancer with instance groups as backends.
Training
Training and tutorials
Google Cloud networking 101
Set up a load balanced application on Google Cloud.
Training
Training and tutorials
Hands on lab for hosting a web app on Compute Engine
In this lab you will deploy a sample application, the "Fancy Store" ecommerce website, to show how a website can be deployed and scaled easily with Compute Engine.
Use case
Use cases
Request routing to a multi-region external Application Load Balancer
Learn how to create an Application Load Balancer that selects backend services based on request URL paths, and then routes requests to backends that are close to the clients.
multi-region
load balancing
Use case
Use cases
Use UDP with Network Load Balancers
Learn how to handle User Datagram Protocol (UDP) traffic with a Network Load Balancer.
UDP
load balancing
Use case
Use cases
Learn the value of adding Cloud CDN and Google Cloud Armor to an existing external Application Load Balancer deployment.
CDN
Cloud Armor
load balancing
Use case
Use cases
Delivering HTTP and HTTPS content over the same published domain
Bind a reserved IP address to both the HTTP and HTTPS frontend configuration in the external Application Load Balancer.
CDN
load balancing
Use case
Use cases
Optimizing application latency with load balancing
Learn how your choice of a specific load balancer on Google Cloud affects end-to-end latency.
latency
load balancing
Use case
Use cases
Using load balancing for highly available applications
Use load balancing with a regional managed instance group to redirect traffic away from busy or unavailable VM instances, allowing you to provide high availability even during a zonal outage.
restricting incoming traffic
load balancing
Code sample
Code Samples
Global external Application Load Balancer
Create an external Application Load Balancer by using Terraform.
Code sample
Code Samples
External passthrough Network Load Balancer
Create an external passthrough Network Load Balancer by using Terraform.
Code sample
Code Samples
Internal passthrough Network Load Balancer
Create an internal passthrough Network Load Balancer by using Terraform.
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2025-08-25 UTC.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-25 UTC."],[],[],null,["# Cloud Load Balancing documentation\n==================================\n\n[Read product documentation](/load-balancing/docs/load-balancing-overview)\nCloud Load Balancing allows you to put your resources behind a single IP address\nthat is externally accessible or internal to your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network.\n[Learn more](/load-balancing/docs/load-balancing-overview)\n[Get started for free](https://console.cloud.google.com/freetrial) \n\n#### Start your proof of concept with $300 in free credit\n\n- Get access to Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking\n- Free monthly usage of popular products, including AI APIs and BigQuery\n- No automatic charges, no commitment \n[View free product offers](/free/docs/free-cloud-features#free-tier) \n\n#### Keep exploring with 20+ always-free products\n\n\nAccess 20+ free products for common use cases, including AI APIs, VMs, data warehouses,\nand more.\n\nDocumentation resources\n-----------------------\n\nFind quickstarts and guides, review key references, and get help with common issues. \nspoke\n\n### Load balancer types\n\n-\n\n [Choose a load balancer](/load-balancing/docs/choosing-load-balancer)\n\n-\n\n [External Application Load Balancer](/load-balancing/docs/https)\n\n-\n\n [Internal Application Load Balancer](/load-balancing/docs/l7-internal)\n\n-\n\n [External passthrough Network Load Balancer](/load-balancing/docs/network)\n\n-\n\n [Internal passthrough Network Load Balancer](/load-balancing/docs/internal)\n\n-\n\n [External proxy Network Load Balancer](/load-balancing/docs/tcp)\n\n-\n\n [Internal proxy Network Load Balancer](/load-balancing/docs/tcp/internal-proxy)\n\nsettings\n\n### Customize load balancers\n\n-\n\n [Backend services](/load-balancing/docs/backend-service)\n\n-\n\n [Forwarding rules](/load-balancing/docs/forwarding-rule-concepts)\n\n-\n\n [Health checks](/load-balancing/docs/health-check-concepts)\n\n-\n\n [Network endpoint groups](/load-balancing/docs/negs)\n\n-\n\n [SSL certificates](/load-balancing/docs/ssl-certificates)\n\n-\n\n [SSL policies](/load-balancing/docs/ssl-policies-concepts)\n\n-\n\n [Target pools](/load-balancing/docs/target-pools)\n\n-\n\n [Target proxies](/load-balancing/docs/target-proxies)\n\n-\n\n [URL maps](/load-balancing/docs/url-map-concepts)\n\ngroup_work\n\n### References and resources\n\n-\n\n [Load balancer features](/load-balancing/docs/features)\n\n-\n\n [API and gcloud references](/load-balancing/docs/apis)\n\n-\n\n [Pricing](/vpc/network-pricing#lb)\n\n-\n\n [Quotas and limits](/load-balancing/docs/quotas)\n\n-\n\n [Release notes](/load-balancing/docs/release-notes)\n\n-\n\n [Billing questions](/load-balancing/docs/billing-questions)\n\n-\n\n [Getting support](/load-balancing/docs/getting-support)\n\nRelated resources\n-----------------\n\nTraining and tutorials \nUse cases \nCode samples \nExplore self-paced training, use cases, reference architectures, and code samples with examples of how to use and connect Google Cloud services. Training \nTraining and tutorials\n\n### Application Load Balancer with Terraform\n\n\nLearn how to create an Application Load Balancer to forward traffic to a custom URL map.\n\n\n[Learn more](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/1206?parent=catalog) \nTraining \nTraining and tutorials\n\n### External Application Load Balancer\n\n\nLearn how to set up an external Application Load Balancer and how load balancing can help scale your applications on Compute Engine.\n\n\n[Learn more](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/12007?parent=catalog) \nTraining \nTraining and tutorials\n\n### External Application Load Balancer with Cloud Armor\n\n\nLearn how to configure an external Application Load Balancer with global backends, stress test the load balancer, and denylist the stress test IP address with Cloud Armor.\n\n\n[Learn more](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/1232?parent=catalog) \nTraining \nTraining and tutorials\n\n### Network Load Balancer\n\n\nLearn the differences between Network Load Balancers and Application Load Balancers and how to set them up for your applications running on Compute Engine virtual machines.\n\n\n[Learn more](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/12007?parent=catalog) \nTraining \nTraining and tutorials\n\n### Internal passthrough Network Load Balancer\n\n\nLearn how to configure and test an internal load balancer with instance groups as backends.\n\n\n[Learn more](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/1250?parent=catalog) \nTraining \nTraining and tutorials\n\n### Google Cloud networking 101\n\n\nSet up a load balanced application on Google Cloud.\n\n\n[Learn more](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/catalog_lab/311) \nTraining \nTraining and tutorials\n\n### Hands on lab for hosting a web app on Compute Engine\n\n\nIn this lab you will deploy a sample application, the \"Fancy Store\" ecommerce website, to show how a website can be deployed and scaled easily with Compute Engine.\n\n\n[Learn more](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/11952?parent=catalog) \nUse case \nUse cases\n\n### Request routing to a multi-region external Application Load Balancer\n\n\nLearn how to create an Application Load Balancer that selects backend services based on request URL paths, and then routes requests to backends that are close to the clients.\n\nmulti-region load balancing\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n[Learn more](/load-balancing/docs/https/setting-up-https) \nUse case \nUse cases\n\n### Use UDP with Network Load Balancers\n\n\nLearn how to handle User Datagram Protocol (UDP) traffic with a Network Load Balancer.\n\nUDP load balancing\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n[Learn more](/load-balancing/docs/network/udp-with-network-load-balancing) \nUse case \nUse cases\n\n### Faster web performance and improved web protection for load balancing\n\n\nLearn the value of adding Cloud CDN and Google Cloud Armor to an existing external Application Load Balancer deployment.\n\nCDN Cloud Armor load balancing\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n[Learn more](/load-balancing/docs/tutorials/faster-performance-improved-protection) \nUse case \nUse cases\n\n### Delivering HTTP and HTTPS content over the same published domain\n\n\nBind a reserved IP address to both the HTTP and HTTPS frontend configuration in the external Application Load Balancer.\n\nCDN load balancing\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n[Learn more](/load-balancing/docs/tutorials/http-https-over-same-domain) \nUse case \nUse cases\n\n### Optimizing application latency with load balancing\n\n\nLearn how your choice of a specific load balancer on Google Cloud affects end-to-end latency.\n\nlatency load balancing\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n[Learn more](/load-balancing/docs/tutorials/optimize-app-latency) \nUse case \nUse cases\n\n### Using load balancing for highly available applications\n\n\nUse load balancing with a regional managed instance group to redirect traffic away from busy or unavailable VM instances, allowing you to provide high availability even during a zonal outage.\n\nrestricting incoming traffic load balancing\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n[Learn more](/compute/docs/tutorials/high-availability-load-balancing) \nCode sample \nCode Samples\n\n### Global external Application Load Balancer\n\n\nCreate an external Application Load Balancer by using Terraform.\n\n\n[Open GitHub\narrow_forward](https://github.com/terraform-google-modules/terraform-google-lb-http) \nCode sample \nCode Samples\n\n### External passthrough Network Load Balancer\n\n\nCreate an external passthrough Network Load Balancer by using Terraform.\n\n\n[Open GitHub\narrow_forward](https://github.com/terraform-google-modules/terraform-google-lb) \nCode sample \nCode Samples\n\n### Internal passthrough Network Load Balancer\n\n\nCreate an internal passthrough Network Load Balancer by using Terraform.\n\n\n[Open GitHub\narrow_forward](https://github.com/terraform-google-modules/terraform-google-lb-internal)\n\nRelated videos\n--------------"]]
