Platform & DevOps·Traffic into and inside the cluster
the address you connect to belongs to no machine at all; something on every node rewrites the packet to a real instance.
Virtual IP
Also calledVIP, cluster IP, service IP
A stable address that fronts a changing set of real backends, implemented in the node's packet path rather than by a process listening on it. It is what makes a service name resolve to one unchanging thing, and it is why you cannot ping a service address or capture traffic on it. Load balancing at this layer is per-connection, which matters for long-lived connections that never rebalance.