If you already have load balancing in mind, it means your traffic has really grown. Congrats on that!
If you are getting into the topic, here you have the 4 things you have to know about load balancing. It’s a good starting point for you to go deeper!
What is load balancing?
In a nutshell, load balancing is the action of efficiently distributing traffic and workload across different servers. The more available servers, the best chance to distribute the loads and not let a single one get overwhelmed.
There are different load balancers, simple and more sophisticated mechanisms, software, or hardware. Basically, load balancers constantly check servers to be sure they can handle the incoming requests without trouble. Based on this, they distribute the loads as needed.
4 things you have to know about load balancing.
1. It allows for higher scalability.
It’s exciting to see that your website or application is attracting more users every day. Just let’s keep in mind that traffic directly impacts your site performance. It could be a reason for your website to crash if you are not prepared for it.
When you enable load balancing simultaneously, you increase your system’s ability (website, network, application) not only for handling better the growing load of traffic but also the rest of the work. As a result, performance directly improves and, therefore, the experience you offer to your users.
2. Load balancing provides server persistence.
Persistence is the ability to hold a user session on a specific server instead of sending him/her to a different server for every request. When a user is sent to another server in the middle of his/her session, performance problems appear, and data don’t get saved.
For example, in an e-shop without persistence, the shoppers’ session will be changed from one server to another every time they send a different request. As a result, their purchases list (products on their shopping cart) can be displayed empty, or the card details won’t be saved, so they have to type them again. Abandoned carts (money losses) could get multiplied.
All interactive websites really need persistence. This way, the users’ information will be kept on a single server the time their session lasts.
3. It strengths your security.
Load balancing strengths your defenses against one of the most dangerous threats on the Internet, the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks.
The DDoS objective is to make websites and online services unavailable for legitimate users. There are different criminal techniques, but generally, they drown victims by sending huge traffic loads from multiple sources. As a result, systems get their vital resources (like bandwidth) drained, and they go down.
When you enable a quality load balancer, you are getting an efficient tool to manage genuine traffic. But at the same time, you are giving your system the power to handle malicious traffic too. Yes! You can prevent or mitigate DDoS attacks.
4. Load balancing provides redundancy.
First, load balancing involves the existence of more than a single server to distribute the traffic. Second, load balancers can detect servers with failures, or overloaded, to transfer the traffic to others. This means redundancy! You can trust that your traffic will always be handled. And redundancy produces a positive domino effect. It brings higher uptime, better performance, and less disruption for your system.
Conclusion.
High traffic can be a double-edged sword. It can mean online success, but it can drown you if it’s not properly handled. Load balancing is a great solution you should know and try if it suits your business needs. Pick a quality solution, and enjoy the benefits!