Because of high availability and scalability, when you deploy and application in the cloud, one of the most chosen solutions is using a pool of instances. By using an instance pool, you have several servers that run the application you deployed sync with the latest version of it. One of the tasks to perform when choosing this kind of solution is to let the traffic reach the instances in the pool. You don't want to let public access to every single instance, but you should create a single endpoint from where instances can be reached. This is the main usage of a load balancer. It is a resource that allows you to create a single entry point for your resources, apply filters and then dispatch the traffic to the resources depending on a load of each one. In this lab, you will create an instance group and attach to it two Compute Engine instances that you will find in your GCP environment. Then, you will create a load balancer that will be associated with the instance group. This way, you will able to create a single entry point for your virtual machines and balance the traffic directed to them.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this lab you will be able to:

• Create an instance group associated with several Compute Engine VMs
• Define a load balancer attached to the instance group
• Create a single entry point for a pool of resources instead of having one for each resource

Intended Audience

This lab is intended for:

• Google Cloud Professional Cloud Developer (PCD) certification candidates
• Individuals who want to learn a solution for handling and managing traffic to a pool of resources
• Solutions architects who want to better understand the concepts of load balancing

Prerequisites

This lab has no prerequisites.

Updates

February 3rd, 2023 - Updated the instructions and screenshots to reflect the latest UI

August 3rd, 2022 - Resolved deployment issue