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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

HTTPS Everywhere
The practice of securing all web traffic with TLS encryption, ensuring data integrity and privacy between browsers and servers.
OSI Model
The seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection model that standardizes network communication functions from physical transmission to application protocols.
SDN (Software-Defined Networking)
An approach that separates the network control plane from the data plane, enabling centralized, programmable network management.
WireGuard
A modern, lightweight VPN protocol that uses state-of-the-art cryptography and minimal code for fast, secure tunneling.
Network Monitoring
The practice of continuously observing network infrastructure to detect failures, performance degradation, and security threats.
Latency
The time delay between sending a request and receiving a response, measured in milliseconds.
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