Load Balancer
A service that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes overwhelmed.
Description
In the context of AWS, a Load Balancer is a crucial component for managing incoming application traffic efficiently. It automatically distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses, which helps maintain high availability and fault tolerance. AWS offers various types of load balancers, including the Application Load Balancer (ALB), Network Load Balancer (NLB), and Classic Load Balancer, each tailored for different use cases. The Application Load Balancer operates at the application layer and is ideal for HTTP/HTTPS traffic, supporting advanced routing features like host-based and path-based routing. The Network Load Balancer, on the other hand, operates at the transport layer and is designed for handling millions of requests per second while maintaining ultra-low latencies. Implementing a load balancer in your AWS architecture can greatly enhance application performance, reliability, and scalability, allowing seamless user experiences even under heavy traffic conditions.
Examples
- An e-commerce website using an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic among multiple EC2 instances during peak shopping seasons.
- A video streaming service employing a Network Load Balancer to efficiently route high-volume real-time data streams to various content delivery network (CDN) endpoints.
Additional Information
- Load Balancers can also perform health checks on registered targets to ensure traffic is only sent to healthy instances.
- AWS Load Balancers integrate seamlessly with other AWS services like Auto Scaling, allowing for automatic scaling of resources based on traffic demands.