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System Design
Mediumapi-web-development

What is a Load Balancer?

30 minsLoad BalancingNetworking
30 mins
1 sections
Load Balancing, Networking

Overview

A load balancer is a device or software application that distributes network or application traffic across multiple servers.

  • What Does a Load Balancer Do?

* Distributes Traffic

* Ensures Availability and Reliability

* Improves Performance

* Scales Applications

  • Types of Load Balancers

* Hardware Load Balancers: These are physical devices designed to distribute traffic across servers.

* Software Load Balancers: These are applications that can be installed on standard hardware or virtual machines.

* Cloud-based Load Balancers: Provided by cloud service providers, these load balancers are integrated into the cloud infrastructure. Examples include AWS Elastic Load Balancer, Google Cloud Load Balancing, and Azure Load Balancer.

* Layer 4 Load Balancers (Transport Layer): Operate at the transport layer (OSI Layer 4) and make forwarding decisions based on IP address and TCP/UDP ports.

* Layer 7 Load Balancers (Application Layer): Operate at the application layer (OSI Layer 7).

* Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB): Distributes traffic across multiple geographical locations to improve redundancy and performance on a global scale.

What is a Load Balancer? [Medium] | Swiggy System_design | TomoLink