Exploring Load Balancing: Functions, Architecture, and Cloud Computing

This report provides an overview of load balancing mechanisms in cloud computing, explaining how they efficiently distribute network traffic across server pools. It details the functions of a load balancer, including asymmetric distribution, workload prioritization, and ensuring high availability and reliability. The report also discusses the load balancer's position within the cloud architecture, highlighting its role in horizontal scaling and workload management. The load balancer can operate transparently or as a proxy component, abstracting IT resources to perform the workload effectively. Desklib offers a wealth of study resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to aid students in their academic pursuits.

Running Head: CLOUD COMPUTING 0
Cloud Computing

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Introduction
The purpose of the load balancer mechanism is to efficiently distribute the traffic of
the network across different group of servers. It is commonly known as a server pool or
server farm. A load balancer acts similar to that of a traffic cop who is sitting in front of the
servers and guiding the directions to the clients who requests along all the servers from the
ones who use or the clients and returns the correct pictures, videos, the data that seems to be
reliable and fast.
If one of the servers fails to work the load balancer redirects the traffic to the
remaining servers online (Gopinath & Vasudevan, 2015).
Functions of the Load balancer
The load balancer can also provide the facility of the asymmetric distribution where
the large workloads are issued to the IT resources with the processing capacity relevantly
high. The ability to prioritize the workload and discard and distribute according to their
priority and need is the also one of the functions of the load balancer and also requests are
distributed to and the users are made aware about the same.
In this manner the three functions of the load balancer are to distribute the client
requests or to efficiently reduce the load of the networks. The messages are intercepted by the
load balancer and the same are sent by the cloud service consumers. Further, these service
consumers forward the information to the virtual servers so that the processing of the
workload is horizontally scaled.

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The second function is to ensure the high availability and reliability of the requests
and lastly to provide the flexibility to add or subtract the demand of the serves that is being
dictated by the users (Domanal & Reddy, 2014).
(Source: Cloudpatterns.org, (2018).
Position of the load balancer within the cloud architecture
The load balancer mechanism is a runtime agent that provides the premise for the
horizontal scaling and to balance the workload between the resources. The position of the
load balancer is independent of the servers on host, service of the cloud, or as in integral part
of the application and also the server’s environment plays a vital role. The load balancer is set
between the communications paths of two different IT resources. The mechanism can be
designed as an agent of the transparent nature that remains hidden from the consumers
providing the cloud server or as proxy component that abstracts the IT resources to perform
the workload (Panwar & Mallick, 2015).

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References
Cloudpatterns.org, (2018). Load Balancer Retrieved from
http://cloudpatterns.org/mechanisms/load_balancer
Gopinath, P. G., & Vasudevan, S. K. (2015). An in-depth analysis and study of Load
balancing techniques in the cloud computing environment. Procedia Computer
Science, 50, 427-432.
Domanal, S. G., & Reddy, G. R. M. (2014). Optimal load balancing in cloud computing by
efficient utilization of virtual machines. In Communication Systems and Networks
(COMSNETS), 2014 Sixth International Conference on (1-4). IEEE.
Panwar, R., & Mallick, B. (2015). Load balancing in cloud computing using dynamic load
management algorithm. In 2015 International Conference on Green Computing and
Internet of Things (ICGCIoT) 773-778. IEEE.

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