Load balancing a website
Nowadays, most applications are web-based, whether it’s a traditional web interface or a RESTful API. This first tier is typically set up for HA using a load balancer. A load balancer is a system that distributes incoming network traffic or workload across multiple servers or resources. Its main goal is to optimize resource utilization, improve performance, and ensure the reliability and availability of applications or services. When multiple servers are involved in serving a particular application or service, a load balancer acts as an intermediary between the client and the server pool. It receives incoming requests from clients and intelligently distributes them across the available servers based on various algorithms, such as round-robin, least connections, or weighted distribution.
The load balancer is responsible for ensuring the servers’ optimal health and performance by redirecting traffic from overloaded or problematic servers. This...