Benefits and methods of load balancing

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In this video, TechTarget editor Kate Murray talks about the benefits and methods of load balancing.

Say goodbye to network bottlenecks and hello to load balancing.

In today's fast-changing digital landscape, efficient resource utilization and high application availability are critical to ensuring smooth performance and minimal downtime. But how do we get there? The answer lies in load balancing.

Load balancing is a method for seamless traffic distribution which is achieved by distributing the network traffic across a pool of servers.

So, how does load balancing work?

A load balancer, which can be physical or software-based, sits between a network of servers and the internet.

When a user clicks on a URL in their browser, the load balancer determines which server in a pool is available to process the request and then routes the traffic to that server. This ensures that no server is overworked.

A load balancer also scales the infrastructure by quickly and dynamically adding servers in response to traffic spikes. And when the demand is low, it can easily drop the servers. For example, a website without load balancing will ultimately crash if it receives a sudden influx of visitors. With load balancing, the extra traffic is split across multiple servers, preventing the site from crashing.

There are a few common load balancing techniques:

  • Network load balancing is the fastest load-balancing option. It operates on Layer 4 of the OSI model and uses network layer information to transport network traffic.
  • HTTPs load balancing distributes traffic based on information coming from the HTTP address. It operates in the application layer and is one of the most flexible load-balancing options.
  • Internal load balancing is similar to network load balancing, but with the added ability to balance traffic distribution across the internal infrastructure.

In a nutshell, load balancing offers the following benefits:

  • Better traffic flow and improved server response times.
  • Reduced downtime during network outages and server maintenance.
  • An additional layer of security as most load balancers are outfitted with sophisticated security algorithms to defend against cyberattacks.
  • And predictive analysis in most software-based load balancers, which is particularly beneficial for early failure detection.

Kinza Yasar is a technical writer for WhatIs with a degree in computer networking.