Routing policies are the rules and algorithms that route traffic to different endpoints like IP addresses, AWS resources, or other domain names based on various criteria. These routing policies provide flexibility and control over how traffic is distributed to different endpoints, allowing users to optimize the performance, availability, and cost-effectiveness of their applications and services hosted on AWS.

Routing strategies

Route 53 offers several routing policies to allow users to implement sophisticated traffic routing strategies tailored to their specific requirements. In this lesson, we will explore the common routing policies provided by Route 53. Let’s explore the Routing Policies that are provided by Route 53.

Simple routing policy

Simple routing policy allows users to configure standard DNS records without additional routing logic. It is typically used to route traffic to a single resource, such as a web server for a website. This policy is straightforward to set up and is suitable for basic setups where all traffic is directed to the same resource. However, it’s important to note that a simple routing policy does not support health checks on the resources.

Simple routing policy does not permit the creation of multiple records with the same name and type. However, users can specify multiple values, such as IP addresses, within the same record. In such cases, Route 53 returns a random value when queried. This aspect of the policy makes it easy to manage basic setups where a single resource serves as the destination for all incoming traffic.

The illustration below shows how simple routing works in Route 53:

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