Level Up Your Edge - Do You Know Where Your Traffic Comes From?

Learn how to implement authentication services at L7 edge load balancers to gain better visibility into traffic sources and prevent incidents caused by malicious activity, faulty automation, or overwhelming legitimate usage. Discover Slack's approach to solving the common problem of authentication occurring too deep within the network stack, which often leaves vital traffic information unavailable at ingress points. Explore the technical implementation details of moving authentication to the edge, understand how this architectural change provides more fine-grained control over traffic patterns, and see how it leads to reduced incidents and improved site reliability engineering outcomes. Gain insights into identifying traffic sources, implementing proper monitoring at network ingress points, and creating more robust systems that can handle various types of traffic loads while maintaining security and performance standards.