Layer 4 vs Layer 7 Load Balancing
Kay James
October 14, 2022 | 1 min read
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Understand the difference between layer 4 and layer 7 load balancing in a Kubernetes cluster.
Today, we talk about layer 4 vs layer 7 load balancing. Layer 4 refers to the connection level of the OSI network stack and layer 7 refers to the application level. As modern network protocols evolve, more and more protocols are taking advantage of piggybacking and multiplexing requests onto a single connection. This means that if your Kubernetes services communicate using HTTP/2, gRPC, or any protocol that multiplexes requests onto connections, it is very important for you to use a layer 7 load balancer. This video explains why:
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To learn more about load balancing in a Kubernetes cluster, check out the following resources:
Kubernetes Network architecture