Understanding load balancing

You can set up load balancing using a compute cluster. This is a collection of identical servers, called nodes, that run the same operating system and software. The load balancer is a server that sits in front of the cluster and directs traffic to individual nodes. An example is illustrated in the following diagram:

Figure 13.1 – Load balancing

The nodes are connected on a single high-speed network that they use for communication and sharing resources. The load balancer keeps track of which nodes are available and sends traffic to them.

In some situations, you can make use of load balancing to provide redundancy and failover while also minimizing expenses.

You can minimize expenses by shutting down nodes when you don’t need them and starting them up when you do. There are two reasons why you would want to take this approach:

• In a physical data center, more nodes running means higher energy and cooling...