Step 5: Create a Load Balancer

Creating a Load Balancer to configure network ports to access the application

Now that your DuploCloud Service is running, you have a mechanism to expose the containers and images in which your application resides. But because your containers are running inside a private network, you also need a load balancer to listen on the correct ports to access the application.

In this step, we add a Load Balancer Listener to complete this network configuration.

Estimated time to complete Step 5: 10 minutes.

Prerequisites

Before creating a Load Balancer, verify that you accomplished the tasks in the previous tutorial steps. Using the DuploCloud Portal, confirm that:

• An Infrastructure and Plan exist, both with the name you created.

• The Infrastructure you created has GKE Enabled.

• A Tenant with the name you chose has been created.

• A Node Pool had been created.

• A Service with the name you chose has been created.

Select the Tenant you created

In the Tenant list box, on the upper-left side of the DuploCloud Portal, select the Tenant that you created.

Creating a Load Balancer

All containers are running inside a private network and cannot be accessed from an external network. To allow external access, create a Load Balancer:

1. In the DuploCloud Portal, navigate to Kubernetes -> Services. The Services page displays.

2. From the NAME column, select the name of your Service

3. Click the Load Balancers tab.

4. Click the Configure Load Balancer link. The Add Load Balancer Listener pane displays.

Add Load Balancer Listener pane

1. From the Type list box, select Application LB.

2. In the Container Port field, enter 80. This is the configured port on which the application inside the Docker Container Image is running.

3. In the External Port field, enter 80. This is the port through which users will access the web application.

4. From the Visibility list box, select Public.

5. From the Application Mode list box, select Docker Mode.

6. Type / (forward-slash) in the Health Check field to indicate that the cluster we want Kubernetes to perform Health Checks on is located at the root level.

7. In the Backend Protocol list box, select HTTP. HTTP is used for this tutorial since we are not setting up SSL certificates. However, using HTTPS to encrypt data between the user and the server when configuring Load Balancers is highly recommended. If you decide to use HTTPS, you must configure SSL certificates.

8. Certificates: You can leave this field empty, as SSL certificates are not necessary for this tutorial. However, we recommend using SSL certificates with Load Balancers to ensure secure HTTPS connections. If you'd like to add SSL certificates for your domain later, follow the instructions here.

9. Click Add. The Load Balancer is created and initialized. In approximately 2-3 minutes you will see the load balancer details available in the portal. The LB Status card displays Ready when the Load Balancer is ready.

Checking your work

1. From the DuploCloud portal, navigate to Kubernetes -> Services.

2. Click on the name of your Service.

3. Verify that the LB Status card displays a status of Ready

Services details page showing a LB Status of Ready