Learn Load Balancers

Route traffic deliberately and keep services available under changing load.

Start learning 6 lessons · about 1 hours · free
About this track

Learn how load balancers distribute connections and requests across backend pools. Compare Layer 4 and Layer 7 proxies, routing strategies, health checks, connection draining, session affinity, TLS termination, failover, and traffic observability. The short Python panels are illustrative simulations, not real network traffic; exercises focus on understanding behavior and trade-offs.

Before you start
  • No load-balancing experience is required.
  • Basic networking familiarity is helpful but not required.
  • The examples are explanatory Python snippets; lessons and quizzes do not require running code.
  1. Unit 1 · 0/3 lessons

    Routing foundations

    Learn the balancer’s role, proxy layers, and selection algorithms. Badge: Traffic planner

    1. 0x001Understand the load balancer’s roleSee how a shared entry point distributes requests across healthy backends. 12 min 12 min
    2. 0x102Compare Layer 4 and Layer 7 balancingChoose between connection-level routing and application-aware routing. 12 min 12 min
    3. 0x203Choose a backend selection strategyCompare round robin, least connections, weights, and hashing. 12 min 12 min
  2. Unit 2 · 0/2 lessons

    Health and client state

    Manage backend lifecycle, sessions, and forwarded identity. Badge: Pool monitor

    1. 0x304Use health checks and connection drainingRemove failing instances carefully and let in-flight work finish. 12 min 12 min
    2. 0x405Handle sessions and client identityUnderstand sticky sessions, stateless services, and forwarded client addresses. 12 min 12 min
  3. Unit 3 · 0/1 lessons

    Reliable operations

    Protect traffic with TLS, failover, and observability. Badge: Resilience engineer

    1. 0x506Operate load balancers reliablyPlan TLS termination, zonal resilience, capacity, and useful traffic signals. 12 min 12 min
Did you like the lesson? 😆👍
Consider a donation to support our work:
See donation links