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How Implementing Load Balancing Optimizes Service Performance

Considering implementing load balancing? Slow websites and website downtime are more than just nuisances. One study found that slow-loading websites cost online retailers more than $77 billion each year in lost sales. Over half of consumers cite a slow webpage as the main reason for abandoning an online purchase, and just under half will not return to a website after a bad experience.

Slow-loading websites and website outages also negatively affect employee productivity and can degrade search engine rankings. Many factors determine your web page load speed and reliability, including the web page size, web hosting, the geographic distance between the website visitor and the server, and the type of device the visitor is using. Overloaded servers are another major cause of poor website performance because servers have a limited amount of RAM and CPU available.

Load balancers help ensure that servers don’t become overwhelmed with traffic and requests. This reduces latency and reliability problems. Load balancers also help implement failover so that web resources will still be able to respond to requests if one server fails.

How Load Balancers Help Optimize Website Performance

Global Internet usage is exploding. Over 100 million people went online for the first time in 2022, and in January 2023, 64.4% of the world’s population was able to get online. This increases the demand on web servers. The number of requests a server receives today can overwhelm even the most modern hardware and the most efficient web applications. The result is that requests may experience delays in responding or may even be dropped.

Load balancers placed between the user and server uniformly distribute the request load among multiple servers. This reduces the demands on each server and improves overall website performance and reliability.

Load balancers use different algorithms to balance the load across servers. The simplest method is the Round Robin algorithm, which sends requests sequentially to the servers in a cyclic order. Weighted Round Robin gives a numerical weight to each server based on its capacity; servers with larger capacities get a larger share of traffic. The Least Connection method sends an incoming request to the server with the fewest active connections.

Load Balancer Implementation

Traditionally, load balancers have been hardware devices deployed in data centers. Hardware load balancers offer the best performance and are robust. They are suited for applications involving large traffic volumes. Hardware load balancers have some limitations, however.

Up-Front Costs

There is an up-front cost to purchase and install the load balancer. Furthermore, hardware appliances have fixed capacities. If the load balancer’s capacity is larger than needed, then some resources are wasted. But if the traffic demands exceed the load balancer’s capacity, the load balancer may become a bottleneck and have to be upgraded or replaced.

Physical Limitations

Load-balancing devices can be deployed only where organizations can install physical hardware. This imposes some limitations on where load balancers can direct traffic.

Personnel Limitations

Choosing, installing, configuring, and maintaining load balancers requires specialized skills. Organizations may not have the in-house expertise to perform these tasks.

Other Load-Balancing Solutions

Software-based load balancers provide more flexibility than hardware devices. They can more easily be modified as the organization’s needs change. They are also less expensive to operate.

Virtual load balancers offer the flexibility of software-based devices and the performance of hardware appliances. They are relatively easy to install and maintain, so they are suitable for organizations with limited IT personnel.

Cloud-based load-balancing solutions are becoming very popular. Cloud service providers may offer these as part of their services. They offer flexibility and scalability and are suitable for organizations whose traffic requirements change frequently. Since the cloud service provider operates the load balancers, the organization does not have to perform in-house maintenance.

How to Implement Effective Load Balancing for Optimum Web Service Performance

Regardless of which load-balancing solution you choose, proper planning is needed to ensure you get the best results.

Analyze Your Traffic Patterns

Before you install new load balancers, you need to know your load-balancing needs. This means analyzing your traffic patterns, determining peak traffic times and volumes, and the types of requests. This information will help you choose and configure the best load balancers for your organization’s needs.

Assess Your Infrastructure

Assessing your network infrastructure helps you determine the best location to place your load balancers to maximize their effectiveness. Evaluating your servers’ capacity helps you ensure they can handle the traffic load after the load balancers are deployed.

Choose Your Load-Balancing Solution

There are multiple load-balancing solutions available. Software-based and virtual load balancers are easier to configure and modify. Hardware-based devices provide more robust performance but are more expensive to install and maintain.

Security

Identify the security needs of your network. Load balancers can have a crucial role in mitigating Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. Load balancers can be configured to distribute incoming traffic evenly to prevent server overload and identify anomalous traffic patterns. DoS attacks often send large amounts of traffic to ports commonly used for services like email or e-commerce. Load balancers must be protected against these attacks.

Detailed Analytics

The location of load balancers between servers and end users is ideal for collecting useful business intelligence. They can provide information about customer behavior, application performance, and other valuable data. A good load balancer can gather these insights and can integrate with your other analytics tools.

Automated Configuration

With the popularity of agile and DevOps development processes, your traffic patterns may be continually and rapidly changing. Human operators may not be able to determine and carry out configuration changes fast enough to meet availability and performance requirements. Your load balancers may need automated configuration capability to keep up with demand.

Uptime’s web monitoring services gives you the ability to assess the demands being placed on your web servers so you can determine what load-balancing solutions are suitable. Uptime’s monitoring tools can help you detect bottlenecks and optimize your website’s speed and performance. To learn more, try for free, or schedule a demo, visit Uptime.com.

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