Google Cloud Professional Cloud Security Engineer Practice Exam

Which type of load balancer is recommended to maintain client IP while using the standard network tier?

1. Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer

2. Cloud CDN

3. TCP/UDP Network Load Balancer

4. HTTP(S) Load Balancer

The correct answer is: TCP/UDP Network Load Balancer

The TCP/UDP Network Load Balancer is recommended to maintain client IP addresses while utilizing the standard network tier because it is designed to operate at the transport layer (Layer 4) of the OSI model. This type of load balancer is capable of forwarding client requests to backend instances without altering the original source IP addresses of the clients. By working at Layer 4, it can directly handle TCP and UDP traffic, allowing it to preserve client IP addresses as connections are established. This is particularly important for applications that require the client's identity for logging, security policies, or session management. In contrast, other options like the HTTP(S) Load Balancer (which operates at Layer 7) typically do not preserve the original client IP unless additional configurations, such as the use of X-Forwarded-For headers, are implemented. The Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer is meant for applications within the Google Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and also operates at Layer 7, which means that preserving IP address information natively is not a primary feature. Cloud CDN does not function as a load balancer, but rather as a caching solution that accelerates content delivery. Therefore, it does not relate directly to the preservation of client IP addresses in