Load Balancing
Load Balancing
Application availability
Server failure or maintenance can increase application downtime, making your application unavailable to
visitors. Load balancers increase the fault tolerance of your systems by automatically detecting server
problems and redirecting client traffic to available servers. You can use load balancing to make these tasks
easier:
Perform health checks and prevent issues that can cause downtime
Application scalability
You can use load balancers to direct network traffic intelligently among multiple servers. Your applications
can handle thousands of client requests because load balancing does the following:
Predicts application traffic so that you can add or remove different servers, if needed
Adds redundancy to your system so that you can scale with confidence
Application security
Load balancers come with built-in security features to add another layer of security to your internet
applications. They are a useful tool to deal with distributed denial of service attacks, in which attackers
flood an application server with millions of concurrent requests that cause server failure. Load balancers
can also do the following:
Application performance
Load balancers improve application performance by increasing response time and reducing network
latency. They perform several critical tasks such as the following:
Static load balancing algorithms follow fixed rules and are independent of the current server state. The
following are examples of static load balancing.
Round-robin method
Servers have IP addresses that tell the client where to send requests. The IP address is a long number that is
difficult to remember. To make it easy, a Domain Name System maps website names to servers. When you
enter aws.amazon.com into your browser, the request first goes to our name server, which returns our IP
address to your browser.
In the round-robin method, an authoritative name server does the load balancing instead of specialized
hardware or software. The name server returns the IP addresses of different servers in the server farm turn
by turn or in a round-robin fashion.
In weighted round-robin load balancing, you can assign different weights to each server based on their
priority or capacity. Servers with higher weights will receive more incoming application traffic from the
name server.
IP hash method
In the IP hash method, the load balancer performs a mathematical computation, called hashing, on the
client IP address. It converts the client IP address to a number, which is then mapped to individual servers.
Dynamic load balancing algorithms examine the current state of the servers before distributing traffic. The
following are some examples of dynamic load balancing algorithms.
A connection is an open communication channel between a client and a server. When the client sends the
first request to the server, they authenticate and establish an active connection between each other. In the
least connection method, the load balancer checks which servers have the fewest active connections and
sends traffic to those servers. This method assumes that all connections require equal processing power for
all servers.
Weighted least connection algorithms assume that some servers can handle more active connections than
others. Therefore, you can assign different weights or capacities to each server, and the load balancer sends
the new client requests to the server with the least connections by capacity.
The response time is the total time that the server takes to process the incoming requests and send a
response. The least response time method combines the server response time and the active connections to
determine the best server. Load balancers use this algorithm to ensure faster service for all users.
Resource-based method
In the resource-based method, load balancers distribute traffic by analyzing the current server load.
Specialized software called an agent runs on each server and calculates usage of server resources, such as
its computing capacity and memory. Then, the load balancer checks the agent for sufficient free resources
before distributing traffic to that server.
Load balancing is like the work done by a manager in a restaurant. Consider a restaurant with five waiters. If
customers were allowed to choose their waiters, one or two waiters could be overloaded with work while
the others are idle. To avoid this scenario, the restaurant manager assigns customers to the specific waiters
who are best suited to serve them.
Complex modern applications have several server farms with multiple servers dedicated to a single
application function. Application load balancers look at the request content, such as HTTP headers or SSL
session IDs, to redirect traffic.
For example, an ecommerce application has a product directory, shopping cart, and checkout functions. The
application load balancer sends requests for browsing products to servers that contain images and videos
but do not need to maintain open connections. By comparison, it sends shopping cart requests to servers
that can maintain many client connections and save cart data for a long time.
Network load balancers examine IP addresses and other network information to redirect traffic optimally.
They track the source of the application traffic and can assign a static IP address to several servers. Network
load balancers use the static and dynamic load balancing algorithms described earlier to balance server
load.
In DNS load balancing, you configure your domain to route network requests across a pool of resources on
your domain. A domain can correspond to a website, a mail system, a print server, or another service that is
made accessible through the internet. DNS load balancing is helpful for maintaining application availability
and balancing network traffic across a globally distributed pool of resources.
A hardware-based load balancer is a hardware appliance that can securely process and redirect gigabytes of
traffic to hundreds of different servers. You can store it in your data centers and use virtualization to create
multiple digital or virtual load balancers that you can centrally manage.
Software-based load balancers are applications that perform all load balancing functions. You can install
them on any server or access them as a fully managed third-party service.
Hardware load balancers require an initial investment, configuration, and ongoing maintenance. You might
also not use them to full capacity, especially if you purchase one only to handle peak-time traffic spikes. If
traffic volume increases suddenly beyond its current capacity, this will affect users until you can purchase
and set up another load balancer.
In contrast, software-based load balancers are much more flexible. They can scale up or down easily and are
more compatible with modern cloud computing environments. They also cost less to set up, manage, and
use over time.
A Network Load Balancer routes traffic based on IP addresses. It is ideal for balancing TCP and User
Datagram Protocol (UDP)-based requests.
A Gateway Load Balancer routes traffic to third-party virtual appliances. It is ideal for incorporating a
third-party appliance, such as a network firewall, into your network traffic in a scalable and easy-to-
manage way.
A Classic Load Balancer routes traffic to applications in the Amazon EC2-Classic network—a single, flat
network that you share with other customers.
You can select the load balancer based on your requirements. For example, Terminix, a global pest control
brand, uses Gateway Load Balancer to handle 300% more throughput. Second Spectrum, a company that
provides artificial intelligence-driven tracking technology for sports broadcasts, uses AWS Load Balancer
Controller to reduce hosting costs by 90%. Code.org, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to
computer science in schools, uses Application Load Balancer to handle a 400% spike in traffic efficiently
during online coding events.