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Træfik (pronounced like [traffic](https://speak-ipa.bearbin.net/speak.cgi?speak=%CB%88tr%C3%A6f%C9%AAk)) is a modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer made to deploy microservices with ease.
It supports several backends ([Docker](https://www.docker.com/), [Swarm mode](https://docs.docker.com/engine/swarm/), [Kubernetes](https://kubernetes.io), [Marathon](https://mesosphere.github.io/marathon/), [Consul](https://www.consul.io/), [Etcd](https://coreos.com/etcd/), [Rancher](https://rancher.com), [Amazon ECS](https://aws.amazon.com/ecs), and a lot more) to manage its configuration automatically and dynamically.
Imagine that you have deployed a bunch of microservices on your infrastructure. You probably used a service registry (like etcd or consul) and/or an orchestrator (swarm, Mesos/Marathon) to manage all these services.
If you want your users to access some of your microservices from the Internet, you will have to use a reverse proxy and configure it using virtual hosts or prefix paths:
- domain `api.domain.com` will point the microservice `api` in your private network
- path `domain.com/web` will point the microservice `web` in your private network
- domain `backoffice.domain.com` will point the microservices `backoffice` in your private network, load-balancing between your multiple instances
But a microservices architecture is dynamic... Services are added, removed, killed or upgraded often, eventually several times a day.
Traditional reverse-proxies are not natively dynamic. You can't change their configuration and hot-reload easily.
Træfik can listen to your service registry/orchestrator API, and knows each time a microservice is added, removed, killed or upgraded, and can generate its configuration automatically.
You can have a quick look at Træfik in this [Katacoda tutorial](https://www.katacoda.com/courses/traefik/deploy-load-balancer) that shows how to load balance requests between multiple Docker containers. If you are looking for a more comprehensive and real use-case example, you can also check [Play-With-Docker](http://training.play-with-docker.com/traefik-load-balancing/) to see how to load balance between multiple nodes.
- The simple way: grab the latest binary from the [releases](https://github.com/containous/traefik/releases) page and just run it with the [sample configuration file](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/containous/traefik/master/traefik.sample.toml):
- Use the tiny Docker image and just run it with the [sample configuration file](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/containous/traefik/master/traefik.sample.toml):
- join the Træfik community Slack channel: [![Join the chat at https://traefik.herokuapp.com](https://img.shields.io/badge/style-register-green.svg?style=social&label=Slack)](https://traefik.herokuapp.com)