It’s quite rare these days for a client (eg web browser, video game, phone app… anything that needs an internet connection, really) to directly connect to the server that is actually serving the request.
It often goes through a reverse proxy which can direct the request to the “best” server (reverse proxies can have multiple upstream servers, either as a cluster that can share the load all dealing with the same service, as a bunch of different services, or both).
This has a lot of benefits for service admins (at the cost of mild complexity), and has near-zero cost for clients.
towerful@programming.dev 3 hours ago
Client -> Reverse Proxy -> Upstream ServerIt’s quite rare these days for a client (eg web browser, video game, phone app… anything that needs an internet connection, really) to directly connect to the server that is actually serving the request.
It often goes through a reverse proxy which can direct the request to the “best” server (reverse proxies can have multiple upstream servers, either as a cluster that can share the load all dealing with the same service, as a bunch of different services, or both).
This has a lot of benefits for service admins (at the cost of mild complexity), and has near-zero cost for clients.