CODEWITHSUNDEEP
amazon-web-servicesamazon-ec2load-balancinghaproxyamazon-elb
Robert Newcomb Aka Bobbo
Robert Newcomb Aka Bobbo

Reputation: 11

Possible solution to ELB lacking A record support?

Hey guys I was wondering if this seems like a viable solution to the age old problem of Amazon Elastic Load Balancer's lacking a dedicated IP, and thus A record support.

What if I created a micro/small instance and hooked it to an elastic IP. I can then use that IP as my A record address for my website. That instance will forward 100% of its traffic to an ELB load balancer address (Haproxy?), which will then operate normally and forward that traffic to my server pool.

With this architecture I can use my A-record and an ELB.

Thanks for feedback.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 445

Answers (2)

BraveNewCurrency
BraveNewCurrency

Reputation: 13065

Are there any downsides to this aside from the cost of the initial instance that forwards its traffic to the ELB?

Er, yes. You're loosing about 99.9% of the benefits of ELB.

Will this double forwarding create too much lag or is it really negligible since they're all in AWS?

No, the lag should be small (sub-milisecond). The two main problems are:

1) Your instance will become a bottleneck when your traffic increases. You won't be able to survive a sudden rush, such as being linked from a high-traffic website like Slashdot or Oprah.

The whole point of ELB is that they can manage scaling (the frontend and the backend) for you. If you insert a single box in the flow, it kinda prevents ELB from doing anything useful.

Also, the micro instance can take very little traffic. You have to go to at least a m1.large if you won't want your network packets throttled.

2) Your instance will become a Single Point Of Failure. When your box dies, your website will be down. ELB can prevent problems on both the front and backend with redundancy.

Perhaps if you explained why you needed an A record?

(It is also possible to run your own front-end(s): Just create a box with an EIP, and put nginx and/or HAProxy on it. But as with everything, there are trade-offs.)

Upvotes: 0

JohnE
JohnE

Reputation: 51

If you are currently using Route53 for you DNS, it does have support for handling zone apex.

https://forums.aws.amazon.com/message.jspa?messageID=260459

Not sure if this answers your question since you didn't mention why you need a dedicated ip.

Upvotes: 2

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