User Request
↓
DNS Resolution
↓
External Load Balancer (L4)
↓
Kubernetes Node
↓
Ingress Controller (L7)
↓
Service Mapping
↓
Cluster Networking
↓
Service Discovery
↓
Kubernetes Services
↓
Service Load Balancing
↓
Pod Communication
↓
Istio Service Mesh (Optional)
↓
Container Execution
↓
Internal Services (e.g., Database)
↓
Cache Layer
↓
Final Processing
↓
Response Assembly
↓
Service Response
↓
Ingress Controller Response
↓
External Load Balancer Response
↓
User Receives Response