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World Congress 2025 • Aug 20, 2025 • Session details

gRPC Load Balancing Deep Dive

Max Hausner , Yves Fauser

Your new pods sit idle while initial targets remain overloaded by long-lived gRPC streams. Discover how to eliminate HTTP/2 connection hotspots using advanced layer 7 load balancing.

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#1 about 2 min

Overview of gRPC and language-agnostic environments

The gRPC framework allows defining service environments and applications across multiple programming languages.

#2 about 1 min

Comparing protobuf efficiency against JSON responses

Using protobuf formats reduces byte size over the wire compared to standard JSON APIs.

#3 about 2 min

Limitations and browser support challenges in gRPC

The gRPC framework faces browser compatibility limitations and lacks the overall ecosystem maturity of traditional REST APIs.

#4 about 2 min

Different methods for making gRPC network calls

The gRPC protocol supports unary, server streaming, client streaming, and bidirectional communication modes.

#5 about 3 min

Protocol stack and HTTP/2 persistent connections

The gRPC stack relies on HTTP/2 over persistent TCP connections which complicates traditional layer 4 load balancing.

#6 about 4 min

Distinguishing client-based and infrastructure-based load balancing

Client-side balancing works well internally while infrastructure balancers provide external network demarcation points.

#7 about 3 min

Basic and load-based balancing algorithm strategies

Round robin and least outstanding request algorithms manage traffic distribution dynamically across available targets.

#8 about 5 min

Hash-based load balancing and connection stickiness

Consistent ring hashing and n-tuple hashing maintain target stickiness but risk creating heavy traffic hotspots.

#9 about 2 min

Autoscaling limitations with persistent HTTP/2 streams

Adding new pods during high CPU load fails to resolve hotspots naturally due to long-lived streaming connections.

#10 about 3 min

Functional testing and health checks for gRPC

Tools like grpcurl and layer 7 balancers decode protobuf schemas for functional API testing and automated health checks.

#11 about 2 min

Benchmarking gRPC endpoints using load testing tools

The ghz command line tool evaluates response times and performance distribution across different balancing algorithms.

#12 about 3 min

Resolving hotspots by separating streaming and unary traffic

Routing streams and unary calls through different target groups prevents severe traffic imbalances during autoscaling.

#13 about 2 min

Key considerations for gRPC load distribution

Understanding client load distribution and shortening session lengths mitigates traffic hotspots continuously.

Matching moments

6:34 min

Designing load-balanced cloud architectures for concurrent routing

Oliver Zimmert · LIVE

2:49 min

Handling multi-connection metrics and gRPC integration

Jan Mensch Jan Mensch · WWC Europe 2026

3:11 min

Evaluating communication protocols for high performance microservices

Aleksandr Kalikov · LIVE

2:41 min

High performance communication protocols using gRPC

Simon Auer Simon Auer · WWC 2025

12:17 min

Managing edge cases and load balancing SSE

Rainer Stropek Rainer Stropek · LIVE

3:05 min

Routing traffic natively with Kubernetes and service meshes

Kevin Dubois Kevin Dubois · WWC 2025

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