Reverse Proxy

Reverse Proxy

Web server that centralizes internal services and provides a unified interface to the public. Requests from clients are forwarded to the appropriate server and then the reverse proxy returns the response to the customer.

Benefits:

• Increased security - Abstract backend, block IPs, limit connections, etc.
• Increased scalability and flexibility - Servers are hidden behind the reverse proxy's IP address. We can add/modify servers with ease.
• SSL termination
• Compression - compress server responses
• Caching - Return the response for cached requests
• Static content - Serve static content directly

Load Balancer vs Reverse Proxy

• LB is useful when you have multiple servers with the same functionality
• Reverese Proxy is useful even if you have one for the above benefits.

Solutions like NGINX and HAProxy can support both.

Cons

• Increased complexity to the system.
• Single point of failure. Can be mitigated with multiple reverse proxies (i.e. adding failovers), which also adds complexity.