websockets with load balancer scalability

Question

I use a load balancer with my web site. The browser initiates a websocket connection to my app server. Does the open connection consume any resources on the LB or is it dire

Answer 1

It depends!

The most efficient load balancers listen for requests, do some analysis, then forward the requests; all the bits do not travel through the load balancer. The network forwarding happens at a lower network layer than http (e.g., it is not an http 302 redirect - the client never knows it happened, maintaining privacy around internal network configuration - this happens at OSI Level 4 I think).

However, some load balancers add more features, like acting as SSL endpoints or applying gzip compression. In these cases, they are processing bits as they pass through (encrypt/decrypt or compress in this case).

A picture may help. Compare the first diagram with the second & third here, noting redirection in the first that is absent in the others.