What are the differences between Network and HTTP s load balancer in GCP

Question

GCP provides two load balancers namely Network and HTTP(s) where the former works on layer 4 and the later works on layer 7.

There is also a documentation which states that even HTTP traffic can be load balanced by a network load balancer. This slightly confuses which load balancer to choose for a web app in GCP. It is better to understand the differences before selecting one for the project.

What are the differences between them based on the workflow, setup, region/zone based, options for session affinity, and other settings?

Answer 1

While the global HTTPS load balancer is for Layer-7 traffic and is built using the Google Front Engines at the edge of Google's network. The regional network load balancer is for Layer-4 traffic and is built using Maglev.

Layer 4-  The distribution of traffic based network variables such as IP address, destination port. Not designed to take into consideration anything at the application layer such as content type, cookie data and custom headers etc. It is only for TCP and below 

Layer 7- The distribution of requests based on multiple variables from the network layer to the application layer. It is context aware and can direct requests based on single variables as easily as it can a combination of variables. Applications are load balanced based on their peculiar behavior and not solely on server information. Provides the ability to route both HTTP and HTTPS traffic based upon rules, host based or path based. 

For more differences refer: https://medium.com/awesome-cloud/aws-difference-between-application-load-balancer-and-network-load-balancer-cb8b6cd296a4