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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

Port
A numbered endpoint (0-65535) that identifies specific processes or services on a networked computer for communication.
Subnet
A logical division of an IP network into smaller segments to improve performance, security, and management.
HTTP Keep-Alive
An HTTP mechanism that reuses a single TCP connection for multiple requests, reducing the overhead of establishing new connections.
Traceroute
A network diagnostic tool that shows the path packets take from source to destination, listing each hop along the way.
Proxy Server
An intermediary server that forwards requests between clients and destination servers, providing caching, filtering, or anonymity.
Network Segmentation
The practice of dividing a network into isolated segments to improve security, performance, and management.
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