Classic Load Balancing
Classic Load Balancing is a legacy load balancing service offered by cloud providers like AWS, designed to distribute incoming application traffic across multiple targets (e.g., EC2 instances) in a single or multiple Availability Zones. It operates at the connection level (Layer 4) and application level (Layer 7), providing basic health checks and routing based on factors like round-robin or least connections. It is often used for simple, traditional web applications that do not require advanced features like path-based routing or integration with modern container services.
Developers should learn Classic Load Balancing when working with legacy AWS environments or applications that rely on its specific features, such as TCP/SSL load balancing or integration with EC2-Classic networks. It is useful for scenarios where minimal configuration and cost-effectiveness are priorities, but it lacks the advanced capabilities of newer services like Application Load Balancer (ALB) or Network Load Balancer (NLB). Use cases include basic web servers, non-containerized applications, or during migrations from older systems.