Load Balancer

Definition

A device or service that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers. Like a traffic director ensuring no single road gets overwhelmed.

Use Cases

• Amazon: Prime Day Traffic — Uses ALB to distribute billions of requests during Prime Day (Handles 50x normal traffic spikes without downtime)

Provider Equivalents

• AWS: Elastic Load Balancer (ALB/NLB/CLB)
• Azure: Azure Load Balancer / Application Gateway
• GCP: Cloud Load Balancing
• OCI: Load Balancer

Frequently Asked Questions

ALB vs NLB - which should I use?

Use ALB for HTTP/HTTPS traffic with path-based routing. Use NLB for TCP/UDP traffic requiring ultra-low latency or static IPs.

How does load balancer pricing work?

Pricing is based on running hours plus data processed. ALB costs ~$0.0225/hour plus $0.008 per LCU (Load Capacity Unit).

Category: networking

Difficulty: intermediate

Related Terms

• Server
• Scalability

See Also

• Internet
• WiFi
• Router
• Bandwidth
• VPC