Load Balancer

Load balancing is the process by which inbound internet protocol (IP) traffic can be distributed across multiple servers. Load balancing enhances the performance of the servers, leads to their optimal utilization and ensures that no single server is overwhelmed. Load balancing is particularly important for busy networks, where it is difficult to predict the number of requests that will be issued to a server.

On the Internet, companies whose Web sites get a great deal of traffic usually use load balancing. For load balancing Web traffic, there are several approaches. For Web serving, one approach is to route each request in turn to a different server host address in a domain name system (DNS) table, round-robin fashion. Usually, if two servers are used to balance a work load, a third server is needed to determine which server to assign the work to. Since load balancing requires multiple servers, it is usually combined with failover and backup services. In some approaches, the servers are distributed over different geographic locations.