Server load balancing architectures, Part 1: Transport-level load balancing
Server farms achieve high scalability and high availability through server load balancing, a technique that makes the server farm appear to clients as a single server. In this two-part article, Gregor Roth explores server load balancing architectures, with a focus on open source solutions. Part 1 covers server load balancing basics and discusses the pros and cons of transport-level server load balancing.
The barrier to entry for many Internet companies is low. Anyone with a good idea can develop a small application, purchase a domain name, and set up a few PC-based servers to handle incoming traffic. The initial investment is small, so the start-up risk is minimal. But a successful low-cost infrastructure can become a serious problem quickly. A single server that handles all the incoming requests may not have the capacity to handle high traffic volumes once the business becomes popular. In such a situations companies often start to scale up: they upgrade the existing infrastructure by buying a larger box with more processors or add more memory to run the applications.
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