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Networking Intermediate

What is Load Balancer?

A device or software that distributes network traffic across multiple servers to ensure reliability and performance.

Load balancers distribute incoming requests across a pool of backend servers. This prevents any single server from becoming overwhelmed, improves response times, and provides redundancy.

Algorithms include round-robin, least connections, weighted, and IP hash. Popular solutions include Nginx, HAProxy, AWS ELB, and F5. Load balancers operate at Layer 4 (transport) or Layer 7 (application).

Related Terms

CIDR Notation
A compact method for specifying IP addresses and their associated routing prefix using a slash followed by the prefix length.
Anycast
A network routing technique where the same IP address is announced from multiple locations, directing users to the nearest server.
SSL/TLS Certificate
A digital certificate that authenticates a website identity and enables encrypted HTTPS connections.
HTTP Keep-Alive
An HTTP mechanism that reuses a single TCP connection for multiple requests, reducing the overhead of establishing new connections.
NAT (Network Address Translation)
A method of mapping private IP addresses to public IP addresses, allowing multiple devices to share a single public IP.
WireGuard
A modern, lightweight VPN protocol that uses state-of-the-art cryptography and minimal code for fast, secure tunneling.
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