.NET Architecture & System Design Interview Question #15

What is load balancing?

Architecture Fundamentals, Scalability, Availability & Performance Junior Beginner

Quick Interview Answer

Load balancing distributes incoming traffic or work across multiple healthy service instances. It helps use capacity efficiently and can prevent one instance from becoming overloaded.

Detailed Explanation

Load balancing distributes incoming traffic or work across multiple healthy service instances. It helps use capacity efficiently and can prevent one instance from becoming overloaded.

A load balancer may operate at different network layers and use strategies such as round robin, least connections, or weighted routing. Health checks are important so traffic is not sent to unhealthy instances.

Code Example

-> App 1
Clients -> LB -> App 2
             -> App 3

LB checks health and distributes requests.