What is the difference between regional and global load balancing in Google Cloud?

The distinction between regional and global load balancing in Google Cloud primarily revolves around their scope and the level of resources they manage. Regional load balancing is designed to operate within a specific geographic region, meaning it distributes incoming traffic to resources that are located in that same region. This is particularly beneficial for scenarios where low latency is critical, as the traffic is managed locally, allowing for quick response times.

On the other hand, global load balancing spreads traffic across multiple regions. This capability enables it to efficiently manage requests from clients that may be located far from the resources, by intelligently routing traffic to the nearest operational region. This can enhance performance, availability, and fault tolerance for applications that serve a global audience. The global load balancer can automatically direct traffic to healthy instances across different regions, thus ensuring that there is optimal resource utilization and redundancy.

In summary, the core difference between the two is that regional load balancing is restricted to a single region's resources, providing localized traffic management, while global load balancing offers a broader approach by balancing traffic across resources located in different regions, facilitating optimized performance for a worldwide user base.