Load Balancer
ToolDefinition
A load balancer distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server is overwhelmed, improving availability and scalability. Load balancers detect failed servers and stop routing traffic to them (health checks). Examples: AWS ALB, Nginx, HAProxy, Cloudflare.
Related Tools
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Terms
Git
Git is a distributed version control system for tracking changes in source code. Created by Linus Torvalds in 2005, Git enables multiple developers to collaborate on a codebase, maintain a full history of changes, and branch/merge code independently. GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket host Git repositories.
Docker
Docker is a platform for packaging applications and their dependencies into portable containers. Docker containers share the OS kernel (unlike VMs) making them lightweight and fast. Docker enables consistent environments from development through production, eliminating "works on my machine" issues.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Originally developed by Google, Kubernetes manages clusters of container hosts and handles load balancing, self-healing, rolling updates, and scaling.
Nginx
Nginx (pronounced "engine-x") is a high-performance web server, reverse proxy, and load balancer. Nginx uses an event-driven architecture that handles thousands of concurrent connections efficiently. It is commonly used as a reverse proxy in front of Node.js, Python, and PHP application servers.