Load Balancing

Cloud load balancing distributes incoming network traffic across multiple backend resources, such as virtual machines, containers, or serverless functions, to ensure no single resource is overwhelmed and that applications remain available even if individual components fail. Unlike hardware load balancers in traditional data centers, cloud load balancers are fully managed services that scale automatically with traffic and require no physical maintenance. Cloud providers offer multiple types, including application load balancers that operate at Layer 7 and make routing decisions based on HTTP content, and network load balancers that operate at Layer 4 for high-performance, low-latency traffic distribution.