For global HTTP(s) load balancing, the Global Anycast VIP (IPv4 or IPv6) is associated with a forwarding rule, which directs traffic to a target proxy.

The target proxy terminates the client session, and for HTTPs you deploy your certificates at this stage, define the backend host, and define the path rules. The URL map provides Layer 7 routing and directs the client request to the appropriate backend service.

The backend services can be managed instance groups (MIGs) for compute instances, or network endpoint groups (NEGs) for your containerized workloads. This is also where service instance capacity and health is determined.

Cloud CDN is enabled to cache content for improved performance. You can set up firewall rules to control traffic to and from your backend.

The internal load balancing setup works the same way; you still have a forwarding rule but it points directly to a backend service. The forwarding rule has the virtual IP address, the protocol, and up to five ports.