One hostname must serve two different back ends: requests whose path starts with /api go to a container service, and everything else goes to a static web tier. The decision has to be made by reading the HTTP path of each request. Which service does this?

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02), objective 3. Cloud technology and services medium

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The options

Correct An Application Load Balancer

Correct. It operates at the HTTP layer, so it can read the request and route on path, host header, HTTP header or method to different target groups.

Not correct A Network Load Balancer

Wrong. It operates at the connection layer, forwarding TCP and UDP by port at very high throughput and very low latency. It never sees the HTTP path, because it does not parse HTTP at all.

Not correct Amazon Route 53 with weighted records

Wrong. DNS resolves a name to addresses before the request is made; the path is not part of a DNS query and the resolver has no way to know it. Weighted records split traffic by proportion, not by URL.

Not correct A Gateway Load Balancer

Wrong. That one exists to insert third-party virtual appliances — firewalls, intrusion detection — transparently into the traffic path. It is not for application routing.

Why

Elastic Load Balancing comes in three flavours and the exam separates them by layer. Application Load Balancer: HTTP and HTTPS, content-based routing, the default for web applications and containers. Network Load Balancer: TCP and UDP, extreme throughput, very low latency, and a static IP address per Availability Zone. Gateway Load Balancer: putting security appliances in the path. All three spread traffic across Availability Zones and stop sending it to targets that fail health checks.

Where this comes from

Cited
AWS exam guide task statement 3.3

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