Unlocking the power of Endurance: A beginner's API guide for smarter load balancing

For years, our load balancers have been the silent workhorses of countless networks, diligently balancing traffic and ensuring uptime. We've always focused on building a rock-solid platform that just works. But the world of IT is changing. Modern infrastructure is dynamic, scalable, and increasingly defined by code. In this new landscape, simply "working" isn't enough.

We asked ourselves: how can we make our load balancers not just a component, but a fully integrated part of a modern, automated environment? The answer was clear: we needed to give you the power to control, configure, and communicate with the appliance in a way that fits your workflow. We needed to give you a first-class API.

Why use a load balancer API?

You might wonder, "I have a perfectly good web interface, why do I need an API?" The answer comes down to three things: speed, scale, and integration.

• Speed and efficiency: Imagine deploying a new application. Instead of manually clicking through a web interface to configure your load balancer, you can have a script do it for you in seconds. The API allows you to automate repetitive tasks, freeing up your time to focus on what really matters.
• Consistency and scale: When you manage dozens or even hundreds of services, human error becomes a real risk. An API ensures that every configuration is applied consistently, every single time. It allows you to manage your infrastructure at a scale that would be impossible to do manually.
• Powerful integrations: The true power of the API is unlocked when you connect it to other systems. You can build custom dashboards that show real-time server status, integrate with your CI/CD pipeline to automate application deployments, or create self-healing infrastructure that automatically adds or removes servers based on application performance.

Whether you're a developer, system administrator, or DevOps engineer, the new Loadbalancer.org Endurance API provides a simple, consistent, and secure way to make your load balancer a seamless part of your automated world.

Endurance is built around RESTful principles, using straightforward HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE to manage resources. It's human-readable, easy to test, and works seamlessly with almost every modern programming language.

Load balancer API benefits include

• Automation: Eliminate manual configuration tasks.
• Scalability: Manage multiple appliances or entire clusters with code.
• Integration: Easily integrate with cloud providers, CI/CD pipelines, or orchestration platforms.
• Consistency: Apply standardized configurations across environments.

Why a new API for Endurance?

Endurance has been built from the ground up with an API-first approach to meet modern infrastructure challenges. This enables full automation and seamless integration with existing toolchains with functions accessible through a modern RESTful API, with real-time updates via WebSocket connections.

For more on why we built Endurance and the problems it's designed to solve, check out our blog: Building Endurance: A load balancer with a clear purpose.

Real-world Endurance API use cases

Let's take a look at a few scenarios where the Loadbalancer Endurance appliance API comes into its own:

1. Automated elastic IP allocation

Suppose you're building an auto-scaling cloud service where new servers are dynamically spun up. Using the API, you can allocate new Elastic IP addresses on the fly:

Example:

POST /aws/elastic-ips

Request Body:

{}

Response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "message": "New Elastic IP successfully allocated",
  "data": {
    "id": "5e1-c83-a66-2ab"
  }
}

2. Cleaning up resources automatically

When a server is decommissioned, you can automatically release its Elastic IP to keep your pool tidy:

Example:

DELETE /aws/elastic-ips/:id

Response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "message": "EIP has been deleted"
}

3. Monitoring and reporting

Integrate the API into your monitoring systems to fetch live data on your IP allocations or appliance status.

Example:

GET /aws/elastic-ips/:id

Response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "message": "EIP/s",
  "data": {
    "id": "e15-36c-3ce-8c5"
  }
}

4.Self-healing infrastructure

When issues arise, use the API in conjunction with your monitoring system to automatically adjust configurations or spin up backup nodes.

5. CI/CD pipeline integration

Integrate load balancer configuration changes directly into your deployment pipelines, ensuring that new services are automatically added to your balancing pools as part of each release.

How to use the Endurance API

Step 1. Authenticate

Before using any API endpoints, you need to authenticate. Loadbalancer's Endurance API typically uses token-based authentication:

Example:

POST /api/login

Request Body:

{
  "username": "admin",
  "password": "your_secure_password"
}

Response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "token": "your_access_token_here"
}

For subsequent API calls, include the token in your Authorization header:

Authorization: Bearer your_access_token_here

Step 2. Create a new service

Once authenticated, you can create new services. Here is a simplified example of creating a new load-balanced service:

Example:

POST /services

Request Body:

{
  "name": "web_service",
  "protocol": "tcp",
  "port": 80,
  "real_servers": [
    {"ip": "192.168.1.10", "port": 80},
    {"ip": "192.168.1.11", "port": 80}
  ]
}

Response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "message": "Service created successfully",
  "service_id": "abc-123-def"
}

Step 3: Retrieve cluster status

The API also allows you to monitor the overall cluster health and status. This can be useful for centralized monitoring dashboards or automated health checks.

Example:

GET /cluster/status

Response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    "cluster_state": "active",
    "nodes": [
      {"node": "master", "state": "online"},
      {"node": "slave", "state": "online"}
    ]
  }
}

With this information, you can programmatically verify the health of your load balancer cluster and trigger alerts or automated recovery actions as needed.

Getting started

Getting started with Endurance is incredibly simple, with:

1. Authentication: The API uses secure authentication to protect your systems.
2. Documentation: Comprehensive API documentation provides clear examples for every endpoint.
3. Sandbox testing: Use tools like Postman or curl to experiment and test your calls before deploying to production.
4. SDKs: Easily wrap the API in your favorite language or automation framework.

Conclusion

Loadbalancer's Endurance API empowers you to take full programmatic control of your infrastructure.

By automating common tasks, integrating with your existing systems, and enabling advanced orchestration, you can ensure that your services are always optimized, resilient, and efficient.

Whether you're just getting started or looking to supercharge your automation, the Endurance API exists to make your job easier.