East-west traffic control and north-south traffic control refer to different patterns of network traffic flow within and between data centers or cloud environments.
North-south traffic describes data moving between a client (outside the data center) and a server (inside the data center). This is typically inbound or outbound traffic, such as a user accessing a web application hosted in the cloud. For example, when a user visits a website, their request travels from their device (north) to the server (south), and the response goes back (north).
East-west traffic refers to data moving laterally between servers or services within the same data center or cloud environment. This includes communication between microservices, databases, or load balancers. For instance, in a microservices architecture, multiple services may exchange data frequently, generating east-west traffic.
In cloud environments, managing both types of traffic is crucial. For north-south traffic, Tencent Cloud's CLB (Cloud Load Balancer) can distribute incoming traffic efficiently. For east-west traffic, Tencent Cloud's VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) and Security Groups help control and secure internal communications. Additionally, Tencent Cloud's TSE (Tencent Service Engine) can optimize microservices traffic management.