A Kubernetes Ingress Load Balancer is a Kubernetes resource that manages external access to services within a Kubernetes cluster. It provides a way to route traffic from outside the cluster to services within the cluster, based on defined rules.
Kubernetes Ingress Components
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
- Ingress Resource:
- An Ingress is an API object that defines the rules for routing external HTTP(S) traffic to the services within a Kubernetes cluster. It allows you to define routes, hosts, paths, and even custom rules to direct traffic appropriately.
- Ingress resources can manage SSL termination, provide name-based virtual hosting, and implement fanout routing (routing based on URL paths).
- Ingress Controller:
- The Ingress Controller is a component that watches for Ingress resources and processes them to implement the specified load balancing and routing rules.
- The controller configures the underlying load balancer or proxy to adhere to the rules defined in the Ingress resource.
- Load Balancing:
- The Ingress Load Balancer directs incoming requests to the appropriate services based on the Ingress rules. It balances the load across multiple instances of a service, ensuring that traffic is efficiently distributed.
- It can also handle SSL termination, where HTTPS traffic is terminated at the load balancer, and then HTTP traffic is forwarded to the services within the cluster.
Key Benefits:
- Simplified Traffic Management: Ingress abstracts away the complexities of managing external access and routing rules.
- Scalability: It supports load balancing, which helps distribute traffic evenly across service instances, improving application performance and reliability.
- Security: Ingress can handle SSL/TLS termination, ensuring secure communication between clients and the cluster.