Amazon Elastic Load Balancing Reviews

We use several Amazon solutions including Lambda, S3, and EKS. Within EKS, there are various microservices, and DynamoDB is one of them in terms of databases. We also use various applications such as Java, Tomcat, and others.

For my use case with Amazon, S3 is primarily used for file services and storage, along with Kubernetes. I am not using other solutions from Amazon directly, such as Snowball or SimpleDB.

I am using Elastic File Store for Amazon File Services, which is the full name of the Elastic File System we are working with.

I have been working with Amazon Elastic Load Balancing for more than three years for various applications and moving on from F5. We use Amazon Elastic Load Balancing with AWS FSx, a file service from NetApp.

When there is high load and an auto-scaling group is attached, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing provides assistance. It provides content-based routing features of the application load balancer, though this adds to cost, so we have those only for critical apps.

I utilize the Network Load Balancer, which we still have on-premises. The Network Load Balancer is helpful for performance enhancement and availability. Amazon Elastic Load Balancing offers flexibility as it can be accessed from various regions and zones.

Availability is one of the main benefits that Amazon Elastic Load Balancing provides to my company. For any critical application that needs to be available, we use it primarily for availability. Amazon Elastic Load Balancing helps during peak traffic times by using round-robin ordering to move traffic.

Cost is definitely an area of improvement for Amazon.

Availability can be improved through the addition of more regions. For example, in India, we have just two regions at the moment, which impacts latency. Having more regions would reduce latency.

Quality is another aspect that can be improved.

I have been working with this product for less than a year.

The stability for Amazon Elastic Load Balancing rates as a 10.

The scalability, ability to scale, and ability to expand rate as a nine.

Based on my experience, Amazon technical support rates as a seven.

Positive

The initial setup for Amazon Elastic Load Balancing is very straightforward.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is superior for load balancing in terms of both cost and functionality. If given the choice, I would choose Google for load balancing.

I would prefer to remain totally anonymous. I am a partner with Amazon. I rate this solution as 8 out of 10.

In my case, I have a microservice-based product that has seven to ten microservices. Based on the routing path, I decide which microservice will receive the request. I set up everything in the rules on the ALB side, and I also manage authentication and authorization through Cognito. Additionally, I have multi-regional products, and I set rules for how many requests are sent to each server.

The best part about ALB is its ability to connect with different services including EC2, ECS, API Gateway, or Lambda functions, offering a lot of benefits like attaching a WAF. Setting up an SSL certificate is straightforward with ALB. It helps with managing traffic loads through Auto Scaling Group, which easily connects with ALB to handle increasing requests. 

Additionally, because I deploy our solution in multiple availability zones, it ensures that the system is always available and does not go down.

The ELB would benefit from allowing deployment in a single availability zone for test servers to avoid unnecessary costs. 

Additionally, the ability to directly block specific IP addresses without additional service integration would be beneficial. 

Furthermore, sometimes ALB has a delay in recognizing the need to scale the system based on CloudWatch metrics, which could use improvement.

I have been working on this load balancing solution for three years.

ALB is stable and there are no major issues with its performance in terms of load handling.

Managing traffic load is efficient as Auto Scaling Group can easily be connected with ALB based on the number of requests. There is a small delay in scaling recognition.

The technical support is very responsive due to the prime-level support package. They quickly reply to any concerns or tickets raised.

Positive

I previously used HAProxy and NGINX, but they required maintenance. ALB is a managed service and is easier to use.

Setting up via AWS console is straightforward. Logging in and starting the ALB is easy. Even Terraform setup is not complex. It involves putting in necessary details like ALB name and target group.

The pricing is moderate; it is neither too high nor too low. However, using ALB incurs a cost as opposed to the free open-source solutions like NGINX or HAProxy.

I evaluated HAProxy and NGINX but switched due to the overhead of maintenance associated with these open-source solutions.

I will definitely recommend ALB to others as there is no maintenance overhead with AWS taking care of everything. For setting up, AWS console makes it easy without requiring extensive management. Overall, I would rate the ELB solution ten out of ten.

Positive

This is a new banking product that I deployed on Amazon Elastic Load Balancing for scalability.

The solution is known for its scalability and stability. It is the de facto standard for AWS workloads and supports the AWS ecosystem seamlessly. The ECS cluster solution is particularly effective, offering high scalability. Amazon has all scalable and stable solutions available for enterprise solutions.

I do not have any notes for improvements.

I have four years of experience working with this solution.

It is a stable solution, and I rate it ten out of ten.

The solution is scalable, and I rate it ten out of ten.

I rate technical support eight out of ten. The support team has architects available, and it functions well to provide adequate assistance.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward.

We are the implementing organization, and we handle the integration with other solutions.

Elastic Load Balancing is a part of a total solution package. As the implementing organization, we enable our clients to achieve ROI.

Pricing is okay, and Amazon has plans to reduce prices further.

I would recommend Amazon Elastic Load Balancing for its flexibility and scalability, which is ideal for AWS workloads. 

I rate the solution ten out of ten.

We primarily use Amazon Elastic Load Balancing for directing client requests to healthy EC2 instances. Our organization's website is hosted on a web server, and we utilize an internal load balancer for front-end operations and application hosting.

Amazon Elastic Load Balancing has improved our application availability by routing client requests only to healthy EC2 instances. It has also given us flexibility by integrating with most AWS services. Since implementing it, we haven't faced any challenges, and it has proven to be available 24/7, improving accessibility.

The most valuable features of Amazon Elastic Load Balancing are the sticky sessions option, which maintains client connections consistently, and the routing policy, which is beneficial for traffic management. Additionally, it's beneficial that our SSL certificate is associated with the load balancer.

The routing policies and waiting policies could be improved for better performance. We sometimes experience bit latency that could be reduced.

I have been working with Amazon Elastic Load Balancing for three years.

I have faced performance issues intermittently, yet not every time. Overall, it has been stable.

The solution is easily scalable. We have deployed it in a multi-AZ setup and integrated it with auto-scaling groups to ensure there's no downtime in the future.

We haven't raised any support requests to AWS regarding the load balancer, so I can't provide a direct experience about customer service.

Positive

Previously, we used NGINX set up by our internal team. It wasn't flexible, and it was complex to manage. We switched due to its lack of flexibility and to avoid internal server issues.

The initial setup process was straightforward. It took about an hour or two to explore the services and how they would benefit our customers. After a successful proof of concept, it was easy to go ahead with the setup.

The implementation involved two people, including my senior who guided me through the setup process.

One measurable benefit has been the service availability, as we no longer experience downtime like we did with the previous solution.

I'm not informed about the pricing or licensing, as my senior handles that.

Our organization mainly uses AWS services; hence we only explored AWS solutions internally for load balancing.

I recommend going through AWS documentation and doing a brief proof of concept before implementing it in production. We find Amazon Elastic Load Balancing quite beneficial.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We have a web server or a web application that we are hosting on Amazon Load Balancing, and we want to balance the load so that we don't have so much traffic coming to just one of our instances or web servers. We also use it to host applications behind Elastic Load Balancer so that only Elastic Load Balancer is available to the public, not our direct setup.

It is very powerful. The network load balancer is really fast. It provides an IP for each availability zone, making it convenient for cloud tasks. The speed and ease of use stand out. I don't need much technical know-how to use Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, which makes it accessible. It also allows setting up rules and metrics for routing, providing control over load management.

AWS is doing well with Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, however, they could improve provisioning speed. Faster provisioning would be helpful, as the activation time for usage could be shorter. Another improvement could be to make the Elastic Load Balancer creation process more streamlined and less technical.

I have used the solution for somewhere around a year or a little more.

Recently, there have been a few glitches, including receiving 504 errors when expecting the load balancer to switch between instances. I am not sure if it's a network issue or an AWS concern.

I have primarily used Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, specifically the application load balancer and network load balancer.

During setup, I used the console. I ensured that instances and targets were ready, then proceeded with the load balancer creation process. Steps included naming, specifying target types (EC2 instances, Lambda functions, or IP address services), and network mapping considerations like VPC positioning and availability zones. Configuring health checks was also crucial to ensure instances are functioning properly.

We mainly utilize the free tier for application load balancers for demo purposes. Network load balancers are not covered by the free tier, so we monitor usage. Despite this, I haven't assessed detailed cost implications as it's not used extensively beyond certain limits.

I recommend the AWS network load balancer for high-traffic web applications due to its speed and control over configuration settings, which allows handling low-level details efficiently. My experience has been positive, and I rate Amazon Elastic Load Balancing highly - nine out of ten.

I am currently working with AWS services including S3, CloudFront, EC2, Elastic Load Balancer, RDS databases, SNS, SQS, Lambda, and API Gateway. 

We use a round robin pattern to distribute the traffic and path-based routing to direct traffic to the backend servers.

I find it valuable that you can provide rule prioritization and set priorities for path-based routing. You can also set up mock responses and custom response codes from the load balancer without having them communicated to the server.

There aren't any major improvements needed; however, the latency compared to the network load balancer could be improved. Network load balancers are very fast in terms of latency, and improvements in this area could be beneficial.

I have been using the application load balancer as a part of Elastic Load Balancer for over four years.

The Elastic Load Balancer is very stable.

Elastic Load Balancer is highly scalable and inherently scalable.

We have not raised any concerns with the technical support team since we started using the service.

Positive

I have not worked with any other load balancing solutions. I started using AWS from the very first day.

The initial setup process of the Elastic Load Balancer is very straightforward. It involves creating the application load balancer, setting up routing rules, providing response codes, and mounting an ACM certificate. 

This process takes approximately five minutes and requires minimal maintenance thereafter.

The primary aspect of using Elastic Load Balancer is its availability rather than cost savings. It serves its purpose well by ensuring the server is always accessible. The cost of $18 to $21 a month is not considered significant.

The cost for using the application load balancer is approximately $18 to $21 per month.

For high traffic applications, one should consider the network load balancer due to its lower latency. Additionally, it's important to understand the use case and the specific requirements before selecting a load balancer. 

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate Elastic Load Balancer a ten, acknowledging there's always room for improvement.

We use the solution for internet-exposed websites and internal load-balancing purposes.

The tool could enhance the internal load balancer with better health monitoring. The external load balancer needs more security parameters to protect it from the internet, as it currently lacks protection. It's okay for basic load balancing and those looking for basic functionality in an application load balancer. However, if someone is going to onboard a critical application, like in the banking sector, I wouldn't suggest Amazon Elastic Load Balancer because of security issues. There are no firewall restrictions.

If I compare it to Azure Load Balancer, Azure has two types: the application gateway and load balancing. With Azure's application load balancer, I can have multiple features: app features, data features, and more. It's more compatible than AWS Elastic Load Balancer.

I have been using the product for three years. 

I rate Amazon Elastic Load Balancing's stability a nine out of ten. 

I'd rate the tool seven out of ten for scalability, as it's a bit complex to scale.

The solution's response time is good. 

Positive

The tool's deployment process is simple.

The solution's pricing is low and I rate it a nine out of ten. 

The health check capabilities are basic, running on digital ports, and not advanced load-based health monitoring. However, it does help improve application uptime. I recommend it for small businesses and, in some cases, medium-sized companies.

I would rate the overall solution a seven out of ten. 

In my company, we use it to post, you know, a variety of business applications, like ERP, finance applications, and legal applications, which we post using EC2 instances.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its pay-as-you-go model. You don't pay when you shut down the instances.

The product's stability is an area with a slight shortcoming, which can be improved.

I have been using Amazon Elastic Load Balancing for six years. I use the solution's latest version. I am a customer of the solution.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

It is a very scalable solution in which you can add more servers instantly. I rate the scalability of the product a nine out of ten.

The solution can handle a lot of load, and you don't need to do anything since it will just scale up and down as and when the load increases or decreases, respectively.

There are thousands of users of various applications, and whoever wants to use an application has to use a load balancer.

The initial setup phase is very easy.

The solution can be deployed in a few minutes.

The licensing cost cannot be considered as expensive since I feel it is a reasonably priced product. You need to pay no licensing fee, but you need to pay based on the amount of traffic handled by the load balancer. The licensing fees are based on the number of connections one uses. It is a free tool for a certain amount of connections, which runs into thousands, and after that, there is a certain amount to be paid to Amazon. The product prepares a bill for you based on the number of hours and the amount of data processed.

One should use it if one wants their application to be resilient, highly available, and scalable.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

The primary use case is for learning purposes. A load balancer is used to redirect sites. It is used for managing traffic in cloud infrastructure, utilizing the traffic of multiple cloud servers or a website uploaded on AWS, and matching traffic in simple terms.

It can help manage traffic. That is our biggest benefit in Windows and in VNet both. Also, it can increase the response time because manually attaching some volumes and storage can take more time, but in load balancing, it takes less time.

The overall EC2 instance is best for learning purposes. I have used the application load balancer because it has an easy-to-understand interface, which is beneficial for traffic management. Elastic Load Balancer can distribute traffic easily through various gateways.

I am not aware of any features not available because I have less experience using Elastic Load Balancer, focusing more on Application Load Balancer.

I have hands-on experience with load balancer for around one month.

I find it stable, and I do not face any performance issues currently.

I find it scalable. I can scale the EC2 instance where I can create an instance of approximately twenty GB and attach the S3 bucket and volume to increase its storage.

I have not required any technical support because I am using the free tier of AWS. However, I understand that if we face issues and pay for AWS, they provide technical support in three steps, with varying levels of service depending on payment.

Neutral

I do not work with any other products for load balancing. I primarily use AWS and application and Elastic Load Balancer.

The initial setup was easy due to the user-friendly AWS interface. You first need to create the instance because, without an instance, the load balancing is useless. Then, you create the target group and attach the target group to the load balancer.

I use the free tier of AWS, so I do not have much experience with setup costs or licensing.

I would recommend Amazon Elastic Load Balancing because it is easy to understand. The UI is very understandable, and AWS is more stable than GCP and Microsoft Azure.