# Application Load balancer
**AWS** offers 3 types of load balancers as part of **Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)** service one is called **Classic Load Balancer**, **TCP load balancer** and the latest is the **Application load balancer (ALB)**.
ALB offers some unique features over Classic ELB and one of the features is **Path-based Routing**. What is Path-based Routing? well in simple terms the ALB could forward the incoming requests to different destinations based on the path as shown in the slide.Path-based routing example
## Example
In the above slide, if the request contains the text **/en/** the request would be forwarded to EC2 instance where our app (Hello World) is running in English and if the request contains the text **/es/**, then the request would be redirected to other EC2 instance and we will see the Hello World message in Spanish.
**Note**: In this post Setup of EC2 is not covered.
## Creating a Target Group
The first step is to set up the target groups, you need at least 2 target group to configure Path-based routing.
To start things click on the **Target Groups** under **EC2** Instances We have 2 EC2 Instances running, click Target Groups link to start
Click on **Create target group** buttonCreate a Target Group
In my example, I have set up 2 target groups one is called **‘en’** which routes to **/en/** and other is **‘es’** which routes to **/es/** as shown in the following slidesTarget group settings
Optionally set the **Advance Health Check settings** to the followingHealth check settings
## Adding EC2 Instances to Target Group
Next step is to add **EC2** instances to the **target groups**. Select the target group switch to the **Targets** tab and click the **Edit** button.Adding Targets EC2 Instances to the groupsAssign your instances to the group
## Create an Application Load Balancer
Now the main thing, we need to create the **Application Load Balancer.**Click on the **EC2** instances and then **Elastic Load Balancer** link
Click **Create** under **Application Load Balancer**Create ALB
**Name** your load balancer and add **ports** that your ALB would be listening on ALB name and Ports
**Select** the **Availability zones** that your ALB would be running ALB AZs
Select **Security Group** for ALB, make sure you allow ports that ALB is listening and forwarding onSecurity WarningSelect Security Group
Since we already created **Target group** select the **existing** target group **en**from the listSelect or Create Target GroupReview Target Instances Review ALB settings and click Create
Once created wait for few minutes to change the ALB **status** to **Active** ALB status
## Add Forwarding Rules
Now we have created our target groups and ALB. Now it’s time to add the Path based rules to our Application Load Balancer.
**Click** the **ALB name**, then select the **Listeners** tab and under Listener click **View/edit rules**Create or Edit ALB rules
Click the **+ sign** on top and click **Insert Rule** then select the **Rule type** as **Path**, enter **/es/** in the **is** and select a target group **es** in the **Forward to…**columnCreating Rules
Do the same for **/en/** at the end you should have 2 rules defined as followsPath-based rules
## Test
Once we have these rules created, copy the DNS name of the ALB and enter in the browser with **/en/** and **/es/** in the URL you should see the different sites accordingly.Test Results
P.S. Spanish translation is courtesy of Google Translate.
Hopefully, this post helps you to understand how to add Path-based routing to AWS Application Load Balancer. **Feel free to comment for any questions I would be happy to help.**
---
# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation
If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.
Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:
```
GET https://tkssharma-devops.gitbook.io/devops-training/syllabus/untitled/aws-compute/aws-elb/application-load-balancer.md?ask=
```
The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.
Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.