ALB and Ingress for TechTrend Innovations on AWS EKS

Deploying ALB-Backed Ingress for TechTrend Innovations

AMJ Cloud Technologies partnered with TechTrend Innovations, an e-commerce company, to deploy the AWS Load Balancer Controller on an Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) cluster. This project delivered a secure, scalable solution for exposing TechTrend’s microservices, including user management and frontend interfaces, using Kubernetes Ingress with Application Load Balancers (ALBs). Context path-based routing was implemented to manage multiple services efficiently, replacing insecure NodePort Services and manual load balancer configurations.

Situation

TechTrend Innovations required secure, scalable access to their e-commerce microservices for user authentication, profiles, and frontend interfaces. Their existing NodePort Services exposed applications on worker node IPs, posing security risks and lacking advanced routing capabilities. Routing multiple services via distinct paths (e.g., /frontend, /backend) introduced complexity. AMJ Cloud Technologies was tasked with automating ALB provisioning, enabling context path-based routing, and ensuring secure traffic management to support TechTrend’s growing user base.

Task

The objectives were to:

• Deploy the AWS Load Balancer Controller on TechTrend’s EKS cluster.
• Configure a default IngressClass for simplified Ingress management.
• Expose microservices (e.g., user management, frontend) via ALB using Ingress.
• Implement context path-based routing for multiple services (e.g., /frontend, /backend, /).
• Ensure security with health checks and TLS certificates.
• Automate deployment using Helm and Kubernetes manifests.
• Complete the project within one month.

Action

Our team executed the following steps, adhering to AWS and Kubernetes best practices:

Prerequisites

• Created an EKS cluster with private node groups for TechTrend:

  eksctl create cluster --name=ecommerce-cluster --region=us-east-1 --version="1.31"

• Configured tools (kubectl, eksctl, Helm) and enabled IAM OIDC provider for secure AWS API access.

Create IAM Policy

• Created an IAM policy for ALB management:

  aws iam create-policy --policy-name LoadBalancerPolicy --policy-document file://iam_policy.json

Create IAM Role and Service Account

• Bound an IAM role to a Kubernetes Service Account:

  eksctl create iamserviceaccount --cluster=ecommerce-cluster --namespace=kube-system --name=load-balancer-controller --attach-policy-arn=arn:aws:iam::<account-id>:policy/LoadBalancerPolicy --approve

Install AWS Load Balancer Controller

• Installed the latest controller version using Helm:

  helm install load-balancer-controller eks/aws-load-balancer-controller -n kube-system --set clusterName=ecommerce-cluster --set image.repository=602401143452.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/amazon/aws-load-balancer-controller --set image.tag=v2.8.0

Configure IngressClass

• Defined a default IngressClass:

  apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
  kind: IngressClass
  metadata:
    name: alb-ingress-class
    annotations:
      ingressclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class: "true"

Deploy Basic Ingress

• Deployed TechTrend’s user management microservice with a ClusterIP Service:

  apiVersion: v1
  kind: Service
  metadata:
    name: user-service
  spec:
    type: ClusterIP
    ports:
      - port: 8095

• Configured a basic Ingress for user management:

  apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
  kind: Ingress
  metadata:
    name: user-ingress
    annotations:
      alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/scheme: internet-facing
  spec:
    ingressClassName: alb-ingress-class

• Tested access via the ALB DNS (e.g., /health endpoint).

Deploy Context Path-Based Routing

• Deployed services with health check annotations for frontend, backend, and default interfaces:

  apiVersion: v1
  kind: Service
  metadata:
    name: frontend-service
    annotations:
      alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/healthcheck-path: /frontend/index.html
  spec:
    type: ClusterIP

• Configured context path-based routing for multiple services:

  apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
  kind: Ingress
  metadata:
    name: multi-service-ingress
    annotations:
      alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/load-balancer-name: ecommerce-ingress
  spec:
    ingressClassName: alb-ingress-class
    rules:
      - http:
          paths:
            - path: /frontend
              pathType: Prefix
            - path: /backend
              pathType: Prefix
            - path: /
              pathType: Prefix

• Validated routing order (root path last to avoid overriding) and verified access (e.g., /frontend/index.html, /backend/index.html, /).

Result

The project delivered a robust solution for TechTrend Innovations:

• Scalability Achievement: Handled high traffic for TechTrend’s e-commerce microservices with dynamic ALB scaling.
• Automation Level: Fully automated ALB and Ingress setup via Helm and manifests.
• Security Improvement: Enhanced access with health checks, TLS, and restricted IAM permissions.

Technologies Used

• AWS EKS
• AWS Load Balancer Controller
• Kubernetes Ingress
• Application Load Balancer
• Helm

Key Takeaways

This case study highlights AMJ Cloud Technologies’ expertise in delivering automated load balancing for TechTrend Innovations’ e-commerce platform. Context path-based routing streamlined multi-service management, while ALB-backed Ingress ensured secure, scalable access, offering a model for similar industries.