loadBalancerIP is not a core Kubernetes concept, you need to have a cloud provider or controller like metallb set up the loadbalancer IP. When MetalLB sees a Service of type=LoadBalancer with a ClusterIP created, MetalLB allocates an IP from its pool and assigns it as that Service's External LoadBalanced IP.the externalIP, on the other hand, is set up by kubelet so that any traffic that is sent to any node with that externalIP as the final destination will GET routed.`ExternalIP` assumes you already have control over said IP and that you have correctly arranged for traffic to that IP to eventually land at one or more of your cluster nodes and its is a tool for implementing your own load-balancing. Also you shouldn't use it on cloud platforms like GKE, you want to set `spec.loadBalancerIP` to the IP you preallocated. When you try to create the service using .`loadBalancerIP` instead of `externalIP`, it doesn't create the EPHEMERAL PORT and the external IP address goes to `<pending>` and NEVER updates.