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Load Balancing
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  1. Products
  2. Load Balancing
  3. ...
  4. Traffic steering
  5. Local traffic steering

Local traffic steering

Endpoint steering customizes how each pool distributes requests to its associated endpoints.

These distributions are a combination of two properties:

  • The endpoint steering policy chosen for your pool.
  • The weights assigned to each endpoint.

​​ Policies

When you create a pool, you have to choose an option for Endpoint Steering.

  • Random: Random steering sends requests to endpoints purely based on endpoint weights. Distributes traffic more accurately, but may cause requests from the same IP to hit different endpoints.
  • Hash: Hash steering guides Cloudflare to send requests to endpoints based on a combination of endpoint weights and previous requests from that IP address. Ensures requests from the same IP address will hit the same endpoint, but actual traffic distribution may differ from endpoint weights.
  • Least Outstanding Requests: Least Outstanding Requests steering allows you to route traffic to endpoints that currently have the lowest number of outstanding requests.

​​ Weights

The weight assigned to an endpoint controls the percentage of pool traffic sent to that endpoint. By default, all endpoints within a pool have a weight of 1.

If you leave each endpoint with the default setting and choose a Random endpoint steering policy, each endpoint will receive the same percentage of traffic. If you use a Hash policy, that percentage will vary based on the IP distribution of your requests.

​​ Customize weights

To customize weights when you create or edit a pool, set the Weight to a number between 0 and 1 (expressed in increments of .01). Cloudflare will then send traffic to that pool based on a combination of your endpoint steering policy and the following formula.

% of traffic to endpoint = endpoint weight ÷ sum of all weights in the pool
Endpoint weight example

Here’s an example applying weights to three endpoints with a Random endpoint steering policy:

  • Weights: Endpoint A = 0.25; Endpoint B = 0.25; Endpoint C = 0.50
  • When all endpoints are healthy, each endpoint will receive the following proportion of total traffic: A = 25%; B = 25%; C = 50%.
  • When one endpoint is unhealthy (such as endpoint C), each healthy endpoint will receive the following proportion of total traffic: A = 50%; B=50%.

A significant amount of traffic is required for the distribution to converge on the expected values.

An endpoint with a weight of 0 should not receive any traffic sent to that pool (though the endpoint will still receive health monitor requests).

You can also see this value in the Percent field when creating or editing a pool in the dashboard.

​​ Limitations

If you choose Hash for your Endpoint Steering or enable session affinity, these options can affect traffic distribution.

Additionally, session affinity takes precedence over any selected weight or endpoint steering policy.

When using DNS-only load balancing, DNS resolvers may cache resolved IPs for clients and affect traffic distribution.