1 min lesson
How traffic enters the cluster
Use "How traffic enters the cluster" to tell the cases apart, then choose a response for each one.
Step 1 of 2
How traffic enters the clusteringress and load balancers
External traffic reaches pods through ingress. An ingress controller watches Ingress (or Gateway API) resources and programs an AWS load balancer to match. On EKS the AWS Load Balancer Controller provisions an ALB for L7 routing or an NLB for L4 and the L4-vs-L7 choice shapes what you can do at the edge.
Routes on IP/port; passes bytes through.
Lowest latency, handles raw TCP/UDP and TLS passthrough.
Reach for it when you need throughput or non-HTTP protocols.
Understands HTTP: path/host routing, headers, TLS termination.
Enables host/path rules, WAF attach and request-aware routing.
Reach for it when routing decisions depend on the request.