What is the primary purpose of using an Application Load Balancer?

The primary purpose of an Application Load Balancer (ALB) is to manage HTTP and HTTPS traffic, which is essential for modern web applications. ALBs operate at the application layer (Layer 7 of the OSI model) and are designed to handle requests more intelligently than traditional load balancers that work at lower layers. They can make routing decisions based on the content of the request, such as URL paths, HTTP headers, and methods, allowing for more granular control and flexibility for distributing traffic.

Additionally, the ALB can integrate with AWS services like AWS Certificate Manager for SSL/TLS termination, providing secure connections for your applications. This ability to manage web traffic efficiently enhances the performance and reliability of applications by ensuring that incoming requests are directed to the appropriate targets based on specific rules.

While managing TCP traffic is within the capabilities of other load balancers, such as Network Load Balancers (NLBs), the Application Load Balancer is specifically optimized for HTTP and HTTPS traffic, making it unsuitable for options focused on static IP addresses or secure database connections.