Load Balancing

What is Load Balancing and Why?

Load balancing is a technique, which distributes IP-based queries over the network to the most appropriate available resource (for example an under utilised server in a Citrix Server Farm). The administrator can adapt these methods (scheduling rules) to specific requirements.

Small, medium enterprises (SME) are making increasing use of the e-commerce opportunities offered by the Internet. SME’s can use the web to present themselves and their products. Companies can place information on their Intranet which is then accessed thousands of times a day. The SME can empower their customer to purchase their products online.

The same requirements apply to all companies, regardless of their size:
> The site must be available all the time, 7X24
> The pages must be easy to access at all times
> Access speed must be very good

A more efficient server or improved network hardware alone cannot meet all of these requirements, since it can only improve on the performance.

High-availability (= 99.999% uptime). To attain this level of availability two or more servers must be used. These mirrored servers must then be load balanced for automatic failover and detection of poor application performance in any of the online servers. If one mirror server fails, another mirror server takes over automatically. The balancer knows the extent of the load on the servers and can therefore direct queries in the best possible way.