The purpose of load balancing is to distribute incoming network traffic across multiple servers or resources to ensure optimal utilization, maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid overload on any single server. By evenly distributing workloads, load balancing improves system performance, enhances reliability by preventing server failures or slowdowns due to excessive traffic, and supports scalability by accommodating increased user demand without compromising performance.
Load balance, as a concept, refers to the process of distributing computational tasks or traffic across multiple resources in a networked environment. This ensures that no single resource becomes overwhelmed, leading to more efficient use of available resources, improved fault tolerance, and enhanced responsiveness for users accessing applications or services.
Balancing loads is important to maintain system reliability, prevent performance degradation, and optimize resource utilization in dynamic computing environments. By evenly distributing workloads across servers or resources, load balancing ensures that no single component is overburdened, thereby reducing the risk of system failures, minimizing downtime, and providing a seamless user experience. It allows organizations to handle fluctuations in traffic volumes effectively and supports scalability by enabling resources to be added or removed dynamically based on demand.
The purpose of an application load balancer (ALB) is to distribute incoming application or HTTP/HTTPS traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances, containers, or IP addresses, within a single or multiple Availability Zones. ALBs operate at the application layer (Layer 7) of the OSI model, allowing them to make routing decisions based on content, session information, or other factors. They provide advanced features such as SSL termination, content-based routing, and health checks to ensure high availability and performance for applications running in cloud environments.