Global and Local Load Balancing

Introduction

From the previous lesson, it may seem like load balancing is performed only within the data center. However, load balancing is required at a global and a local scale. Let’s understand the function of each of the two:

• Global server load balancing (GSLB): GSLB involves the distribution of traffic load across multiple geographical regions.
• Local load balancing: This refers to load balancing achieved within a data center. This type of load balancing focuses on improving efficiency and better resource utilization of the hosting servers in a data center.

Let’s understand each of the two techniques below.

Global server load balancing

GSLB ensures that globally arriving traffic load is intelligently forwarded to a data center. For example, power or network failure in a data center requires that all the traffic be rerouted to another data center. GSLB takes forwarding decisions based on the users’ ...