Cloud Load Balancing – A Complete Guide in 3 Points

Introduction to load balancing in cloud computing

Cloud load balancing is the process where network traffic gets distributed across many workload instances. The IT team does load balancing to ensure that every instance performs at its maximum efficiency making sure that the instance does not get overburdened because of excess traffic in the network.

With the IT industry growing at such a fast pace cloud computing plays a pivotal role because of which a large amount of data gets interchanged and generated over the networks so that the companies get better capitalization of their investments. Cloud lets enterprises take benefit of various computing resources which get shared in a virtual environment. 

A Cloud load balancer is an important part of cloud computing which should be known by all, who are either using or are about to start using cloud computing.

1. What is Load Balancing in Cloud Computing?
2. What are the types of Load Balancing?
3. Why Cloud Load Balancing is Important in Cloud Computing?

1) What is Load Balancing in Cloud Computing?

Cloud load balancing is essential to cloud computing which has also expanded over the years. The cloud system gets built to optimize the load balance for any individual device that ultimately makes the cloud network.

Load balancing lets you create a proper balance of the workload that is being done on various hardware equipment and devices. The device loads get balanced among the different servers or inside the single cloud server between the hard drives and the CPUs. Load balancing was introduced to speed up and better the performance of every device and to save the individual devices from hitting their threshold by dropping their performance.

2) What are the types of Load Balancing?

Now that we know what load balancing is let us discuss its types. There are many kinds of load balancing that you would need to understand for your network. Server load balancing is for the relational database, the global server load balancing is for troubleshooting across various geographical locations and the DNS load balancing ensures the functionality of the domain name. The load balances could also be based on the cloud-based balancers.

• Network Load Balancing

The cloud load balancing leverages the information of the network layer and leaves it to decide where the network traffic should be sent. This gets accomplished through layer 4 load balancing which handles all kinds of TCP/UDP traffic. This is the fastest local balancing solution but it is not capable of balancing the traffic distribution across the servers.

• HTTP(S) Load Balancing

The HTTP(s) load balancing is the oldest kind of load balancing and it relies on layer 7. This means that the load balancing operates in the layer of operation. This is the most flexible kind of load balancing as it lets you make the distribution decisions based on the information that you get from the HTTP address.

• Internal Load Balancing

This is also the same as the network load balancing but it gets leveraged to balance the infrastructure internally.

The load balances could further be divided into hardware, software and virtual load balancers.

• Hardware Load Balancer

It relies on the premise and physical hardware that distributes the network and the application traffic. The device is capable of handling a large traffic volume but these come with a heavy price tag and also have limited flexibility.

• Software Load Balancer

This could be as an open-source or a commercial form and should be installed before using it. These are affordable than the hardware solutions.

• Virtual Load Balancer

This differs from the software load balancer as it deploys the software of a hardware load-balancing device on the virtual machine.

3) Why Cloud Load Balancing is Important in Cloud Computing?

Here are some of the importance of load balancing in cloud computing.

• Offers better performance

The technique of load balancing is less costly and also easy to implement. This lets companies to work on the client applications much faster and also deliver better results at a low cost.

• Helps to maintain the traffic of a website

Cloud load balancing is capable of offering scalability to control the traffic on a website. Using effective load balancers it is possible to manage high-end traffic and this is achieved using the network devices and the servers. Ecommerce companies that need to deal with many visitors each second use cloud load balancing to manage and distribute the workload.

• Can handle sudden bursts in traffic

Load balancers can handle any sudden traffic burst that gets received at a time. Like for example, in the case of a university result, the website may shut down because of too many requests. When one uses load balancers they do not need to worry about any kind of traffic flow. Whatever be the size of the traffic the load balancers will divide the entire load of the website equally into various servers and offer maximum results in a minimum time of response.

• Better flexibility

The main reason to use a load balancer is to protect the website from any kind of sudden mishap. When the workload gets distributed among various network servers or units then if one single node fails the load gets shifted to another node. This offers flexibility, scalability, and the ability to handle traffic better.

Because of these characteristics, the load balancers are beneficial in a cloud environment. This is to avoid a huge workload from overwhelming one single server.

Conclusion

Thousands of people get access to a website at one particular time. This makes it challenging for the application to manage the load that comes from these requests at a single time. At times it could cause the system to breakdown.

What is load balancing in cloud computing? It is the field of cloud computing and is the process through which the workload and the computing resources get distributed across more than a single server. The workload may get distributed among two or more than two servers, hard drives, network interfaces, or any other resource for computing. This offers better system response time and better utilization.

A website site that draws high traffic needs efficient load balancing to smoothen the operation for the business. Load balancing helps to maintain the performance, firmness, and protection against any system failures.

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