{"id":7978,"date":"2021-11-13T16:36:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T14:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/?p=7978"},"modified":"2021-11-13T16:36:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T14:36:53","slug":"what-is-load-balancing-in-server-hardware-parlance-we-take-a-closer-look-at-how-it-works-and-its-methods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/what-is-load-balancing-in-server-hardware-parlance-we-take-a-closer-look-at-how-it-works-and-its-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"What is load balancing in server hardware parlance?-we take a closer look at how it works and its methods."},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

Load balancing is a technique used to distribute workloads uniformly across\u00a0servers\u00a0or other compute resources to optimize network efficiency, reliability and capacity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Alissa<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Alissa Irei<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Load balancing is performed by an\u00a0appliance\u00a0— either physical or virtual — that identifies in real time which server in a pool can best meet a given\u00a0client\u00a0request, while ensuring heavy network traffic doesn’t unduly overwhelm a single server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to maximizing network capacity and performance, load balancing provides\u00a0failover. If one server fails, a load balancer immediately redirects its workloads to a backup server, thus mitigating the impact on end users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Load balancing is usually categorized as supporting either\u00a0Layer 4\u00a0or\u00a0Layer 7. Layer 4 load balancers distribute traffic based on transport data, such as IP addresses and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)\u00a0port numbers. Layer 7 load-balancing devices make routing decisions based on application-level characteristics that include HTTP header information and the actual contents of the message, such as\u00a0URLs\u00a0and\u00a0cookies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Layer 7 load balancers are more common, but Layer 4 load balancers remain popular, particularly in edge deployments.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How load balancing works<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Load balancers handle incoming requests from users for information and other services. They sit between the servers that handle those requests and the internet. Once a request is received, the load balancer first determines which server in a pool is available and online and then routes the request to that server. During times of heavy loads, a load balancer can dynamically add servers in response to spikes in traffic. Conversely, they can drop servers if demand is low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A load balancer can be a physical appliance, a software instance or a combination of both. Traditionally, vendors have loaded proprietary software onto dedicated hardware and sold them to users as stand-alone appliances — usually in pairs, to provide failover if one goes down. Growing networks require purchasing additional and\/or bigger appliances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, software load balancing runs on virtual machines (VMs) or\u00a0white box servers, most likely as a function of an application delivery controller (ADC). ADCs typically offer additional features, like\u00a0caching,\u00a0compression,\u00a0traffic shaping, etc. Popular in cloud environments, virtual load balancing can offer a high degree of flexibility — for example, enabling users to automatically scale up or down to mirror traffic spikes or decreased network activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"how
Load balancer<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Load-balancing methods<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Load-balancing\u00a0algorithms\u00a0determine which servers receive specific incoming client requests. Standard methods are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n