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Introduction to the OVHcloud Load Balancer

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The OVHcloud Load Balancer is a fully managed service designed to ensure high availability, performance, and scalability for your applications. Its main role is to distribute workloads across several servers or applications. Simply configure your services behind the Load Balancer; OVHcloud handles redundancy, security, and global traffic distribution.

 

Requirements

  • Access to the OVHcloud Control Panel
  • At least one service to balance (Dedicated Server, VPS, Public Cloud instance, etc.)

 

Introduction

The Load Balancer leverages industry-standard open-source technologies to handle different traffic types:

TypeDescriptionAdvantagesTechnology
HTTP/HTTPSAll web services and APIsOptimized for L7 (application layer) processing, URL redirection, headers, ACLsHAProxy
TCPNon-HTTP network servicesSupports all TCP applicationsHAProxy

 

Key features

  • Built-in DDoS protection across all traffic types
  • Global Anycast network for optimal latency and failover
  • Advanced HTTP/HTTPS support: redirections, headers, ACLs, etc.
  • Additional IP and vRack compatibility: improve availability and performance with advanced networking
  • High availability: isolated redundant instances ensure resilience
  • Scalability: add or remove servers and farms without downtime

 

Architecture Overview

The Load Balancer consists of three main components:

ComponentFunction
Front-endDefines the entry protocol (HTTP/TCP/UDP) and listening port
Server cluster (Farm)Distributes traffic from the front-end across servers
ServerHandles inbound and outbound application traffic

Diagram architecture - Use presentation

 

Benefits

Balance and scale seamlessly

Distribute workloads across multiple servers and scale horizontally without service interruption.

Diagram balance scale

 

High Availability and uptime

Automatic health checks detect unresponsive servers and reroute traffic instantly, minimizing downtime.

Diagram high availability

 

Simplified maintenance

Place a farm or server in downtime mode for maintenance without impacting users, then reintegrate it seamlessly.

Diagram simplified maintenance

 

Service integration

Easily combine with other OVHcloud services:

  • Public Cloud instances
  • VPS
  • Dedicated Servers
  • vRack private networking

Diagram service integration

 

Geographic Distribution (Anycast)

Serve users worldwide with low latency and resilient routing.

Diagram service integration

 

Versatile use cases

Support multiple services over HTTP(S) and TCP traffic.

 

Email server

Balance the load between your email servers.

Diagram email server

 

Databases

Balance your databases, and make them redundant.

Diagram databases - Use presentation

 

Go further

Browse all the Load Balancer guides.

Browse the rest of the OVHcloud US documentation for guides on our other products and services.

Learn more about Load Balancer on the OVHcloud US website.