Welcome to another fascinating course using AI to help you prep for interviews.

In an interview setting, you may be queried about load balancing and its importance to gauge your fundamental understanding of how to maintain system performance and ensure high availability. These questions often aim to discern your practical knowledge and ability to apply these concepts in a real-world environment.

Typical questions include:

• What is load balancing and why is it important?
• Can you explain different types of load balancing algorithms?
• How does load balancing contribute to high availability?
• Describe a scenario where load balancing solved a performance bottleneck.

Understanding these questions will help you articulate your knowledge about distributing workloads efficiently and ensuring system reliability, which are crucial for maintaining optimal performance and availability in modern software systems.

To answer these interview questions effectively, you'll need to grasp several key concepts and their underlying principles:

What is Load Balancing?

Load balancing is the process of distributing network or application traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server bears too much demand. It’s essential for:

• Scalability: Handling increasing loads by distributing traffic.
• High Availability: Ensuring system uptime by rerouting traffic from failed servers.
• Redundancy: Providing fallback options in case of server failures.

Types of Load Balancing Algorithms

Different algorithms direct traffic based on specific criteria:

• Round Robin: Distributes requests sequentially.
• Least Connections: Directs traffic to servers with the fewest active connections.
• IP Hash: Routes based on user's IP address.
• Weighted: Uses predefined weights to allocate more traffic to powerful servers.

Understanding these algorithms helps in tailoring the load balancing strategy to your system's unique requirements.