Load Balancers in System Design
When building scalable and reliable systems, one of the most critical components is the load balancer. Its job is simple yet powerful: distribute incoming network traffic across multiple servers so that no single server becomes overwhelmed. This ensures smooth performance, high availability, and a better user experience. 🔑 Key Functions of a Load Balancer Traffic Distribution : Spreads requests evenly across servers. Redundancy & Reliability : Keeps services available even if one server fails. Scalability : Makes it easy to add or remove servers as demand changes. Health Monitoring : Continuously checks server status to avoid routing traffic to unhealthy nodes. Session Persistence : Ensures a user’s session stays on the same server when needed. SSL Termination : Offloads encryption/decryption tasks from backend servers. 🛠️ Types of Load Balancers Hardware Load Balancers Physical devices dedicated to balancing traffic. Often used in enterprise setups. Software Load Ba...