Service Directory and load balancers
You can choose to automatically register your load balancer service
with Service Directory when you create a load balancer. This enables client
applications to use Service Directory through HTTP, gRPC, or DNS to resolve
the address of the load balancer service and connect to it directly.
Registering your load balancer with Service Directory lets you do the
following:
- Choose custom DNS names to serve the network locations of your
internal load balancers as opposed to DNS accessing your internal load
balancer only through an internally generated DNS name in the
.internal domain.
- Serve multiple load balancers from the same DNS domain name,
which is otherwise not possible with the auto-generated DNS records. This is
useful for internal load balancers in a private DNS zone.
- Register load balancers directly and automatically in
Service Directory providing a single repository for all your services
in Trusted Cloud.
- See standalone services, endpoints, and your load
balancer endpoints with a single command in the Service Directory API.
- Apply administrative actions like access control at the namespace
or service level to encompass both your load balancer
endpoints and other backend services.
For instructions about how to register an internal load balancer in
Service Directory, see Configure an internal load balancer in
Service Directory.
For instructions about how to register a network load balancer in
Service Directory, see Configure an external passthrough Network Load Balancer in
Service Directory.
What's next
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2025-08-25 UTC.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-25 UTC."],[],[],null,["# Service Directory and load balancers\n\nYou can choose to automatically register your load balancer service\nwith Service Directory when you create a load balancer. This enables client\napplications to use Service Directory through HTTP, gRPC, or DNS to resolve\nthe address of the load balancer service and connect to it directly.\n\nRegistering your load balancer with Service Directory lets you do the\nfollowing:\n\n- Choose custom DNS names to serve the network locations of your internal load balancers as opposed to DNS accessing your internal load balancer only through an internally generated DNS name in the `.internal` domain.\n- Serve multiple load balancers from the same DNS domain name, which is otherwise not possible with the auto-generated DNS records. This is useful for internal load balancers in a private DNS zone.\n- Register load balancers directly and automatically in Service Directory providing a single repository for all your services in Google Cloud.\n- See standalone services, endpoints, and your load balancer endpoints with a single command in the Service Directory API.\n- Apply administrative actions like access control at the namespace or service level to encompass both your load balancer endpoints and other backend services.\n\nFor instructions about how to register an internal load balancer in\nService Directory, see [Configure an internal load balancer in\nService Directory](/service-directory/docs/configuring-ilb-in-sd).\n\nFor instructions about how to register a network load balancer in\nService Directory, see [Configure an external passthrough Network Load Balancer in\nService Directory](/service-directory/docs/configuring-netlb-in-sd).\n\nWhat's next\n-----------\n\n- To get an overview of Service Directory, see the [Service Directory overview](/service-directory/docs/overview).\n- To find solutions for common issues that you might encounter when using Service Directory, see [Troubleshooting](/service-directory/docs/troubleshooting)."]]
