Load Balancing
Load Balancer (LB) is another critical component of any distributed system. It helps to spread the traffic across a cluster of servers to improve responsiveness and availability of applications, websites or databases. LB also keeps track of the status of all the resources while distributing requests. If a server is not available to take new requests or is not responding or has elevated error rate, LB will stop sending traffic to such a server.
Typically a load balancer sits between the client and the server accepting incoming network and application traffic and distributing the traffic across multiple backend servers using various algorithms. By balancing application requests across multiple servers, a load balancer reduces individual server load and prevents any one application server from becoming a single point of failure, thus improving overall application availability and responsiveness.
To utilize full scalability and redundancy, we can try to balance the load at each layer of the system. We can add LBs at three places:
- Between the user and the web server
- Between web servers and an internal platform layer, like application servers or cache servers
- Between internal platform layer and database.
Benefits of Load Balancing
- Users experience faster, uninterrupted service. Users won’t have to wait for a single struggling server to finish its previous tasks. Instead, their requests are immediately passed on to a more readily available resource.
- Service providers experience less downtime and higher throughput. Even a full server failure won’t affect the end user experience as the load balancer will simply route around it to a healthy server.
- Load balancing makes it easier for system administrators to handle incoming requests while decreasing wait time for users.
- Smart load balancers provide benefits like predictive analytics that determine traffic bottlenecks before they happen. As a result, the smart load balancer gives an organization actionable insights. These are key to automation and can help drive business decisions.
- System administrators experience fewer failed or stressed components. Instead of a single device performing a lot of work, load balancing has several devices perform a little bit of work.
Redundant Load Balancers
The load balancer can be a single point of failure; to overcome this, a second load balancer can be connected to the first to form a cluster. Each LB monitors the health of the other and, since both of them are equally capable of serving traffic and failure detection, in the event the main load balancer fails, the second load balancer takes over.
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Build the mental picture, not memorization.
I just read a lesson on **Load Balancing** (System Design) and want to truly understand it. Explain Load Balancing from first principles using ONE vivid real-world analogy and a visual mental model — draw it as ASCII art or a clear step-by-step diagram — with a concrete example using real numbers. Then ask me one question to check I got the mental picture, and wait for my reply. If you're unsure or a claim isn't standard, say so and reason from first principles instead of guessing.
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Active recall exposes what you missed.
Quiz me on **Load Balancing** with 5 questions, easy to tricky, ONE at a time. Tell me if each answer is right; at the end, explain clearly what I got wrong and why. If you're unsure or a claim isn't standard, say so and reason from first principles instead of guessing.
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