> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://karansingh.gitbook.io/aws-saa-c02/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://karansingh.gitbook.io/aws-saa-c02/elb/network-load-balancer-nlb.md).

# Network Load Balancer (NLB)

## Overview

* It **functions at the transport layer** (the fourth layer of the OSI model) (**TCP/UDP**).<br>
* It **can handle millions of requests per second**.<br>
* NLBs have **ultra-low latency**.<br>
* **After the load balancer receives a connection request, it selects a target from the target group for the default rule**.<br>
* It **attempts to open a TCP connection to the selected target** on the port specified in the listener configuration.<br>
* It **creates a network interface for each Availability Zone you enable**.
  * Each load balancer node in the Availability Zone uses this network interface to **get a static IP address**.
  * When you **create an Internet-facing load balancer, you can optionally associate one Elastic IP address per subnet**.

## It has the same components as Application Load Balancers

## Benefits

* **Ability to handle volatile workloads and scale to millions of requests per second**.<br>
* **Support for static IP addresses** for the load balancer.<br>
* You **can also assign one Elastic IP address per subnet** enabled for the load balancer.<br>
* Support for **registering targets by IP address**, including targets outside the VPC for the load balancer.