🎁 New User? Get 20% off your first purchase with code NEWUSER20 · ⚡ Instant download · 🔒 Secure checkout Register Now →
Menu

Categories

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

HTTP/HTTPS
The protocol used for transferring web pages and data between browsers and servers, with HTTPS adding encryption.
SDN (Software-Defined Networking)
An approach that separates the network control plane from the data plane, enabling centralized, programmable network management.
DHCP
A protocol that automatically assigns IP addresses and network configuration to devices on a network.
Network Topology
The physical or logical arrangement of nodes and connections in a computer network, such as star, mesh, ring, or bus configurations.
DNS Propagation
The time it takes for DNS record changes to spread across all DNS servers worldwide, typically taking up to 48 hours.
Token Bucket Algorithm
A rate limiting algorithm that allows burst traffic by accumulating tokens at a fixed rate and consuming them per request.
 View All Networking Terms →