Why Load Balancing Matters

Load balancing isn’t optional! It’s the backbone of every production‑grade system. Interviewers will expect you to speak fluently about latency vs. throughput, session affinity, multi‑layer architectures, and the trade‑offs of static, dynamic, and hybrid algorithms.

In this course, you’ll learn how each load‑balancing technique works. Packed with the real concepts, diagrams, and all the decision‑frameworks you need to stand out on your system design interview.

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Your Interview‑Ready Checklist

By the end of this course, you’ll confidently be able to do these.

  • Explain the pros and cons of Layer 4 vs. Layer 7 load balancing

  • Diagram multi‑layer and global load‑balancing architectures

  • Select and justify static, dynamic, or hybrid algorithms (Round Robin, Least Connections, Power of Two Choices, etc.)

  • Handle advanced topics like Direct Server Return, Join‑Idle‑Queue, IP Hashing, and adaptive balancing

  • Implement health‑check strategies (active vs. passive) and best practices

  • Compare hardware, software, and cloud‑provider solutions (AWS ALB, NLB, etc.)

Course curriculum

    1. Introduction to Load Balancers

      FREE PREVIEW

    2. Understanding Load Balancers and Their Benefits

    3. The Need for Multiple Servers

    4. Load Balancers - Definition And Features

    5. Audience Questions

    6. Historical context of load balancing

    7. Modern Load Balancing and Cloud-Native Solutions

    8. Audience Questions

    1. Essential Concepts

    2. Latency

    3. Throughput and Trade-offs

    4. Stateful vs stateless Services

    5. Service Discovery

    6. Audience Questions

    7. Reverse Proxy

    8. Network Address Translation

    9. Single Point Of Failure

    10. Sticky Sessions

    11. SSL Offloading

    12. Subsetting

    13. North-South vs East-West Traffic

    14. Service Mesh and Microservices

    15. A/B Testing

    16. Web Application Firewall (WAF)

    1. Hardware Load Balancers

    2. Software Load Balancers

    1. Understanding the OSI Model and Layer 4

    2. Transport Layer Protocols

    3. What Layer 4 Load Balancers Do

    4. The forwarding process explained

    5. Understanding Direct Server Return (DSR)

    6. Benefits and Drawbacks of Layer 4 Load Balancers

    7. Sticky Sessions at Layer 4?

    8. Drawbacks of Layer 4 Load Balancers

    9. Single Point of Failure and Redundancy

    10. Hardware Layer 4 or Software Layer 4_

    1. Introduction to Layer 7 Load Balancing

    2. Advantages and Analogies of Layer 7 Load Balancers

    3. Advanced Features and Use Cases of Layer 7 Load Balancers

    4. Understanding SSL Handshakes and Load Balancers

    5. Advanced Traffic Management Techniques

    6. Layer 7 Load Balancers in Practice

    1. Introduction to Global Load Balancers

    2. Multi-Layered Load Balancing Architecture

    3. Buffered Connections Explained

    1. Static vs Dynamic Load Balancing Algorithms

    2. Round Robin Algorithm

    3. Key Characteristics and Applications of Round Robin

    4. Weighted Round Robin Algorithm

    5. When to use Weighted Round Robin

    6. Architecture Implications for Static Load Balancing

    7. Round Robin vs Layer 7 Load Balancers

    1. Introduction to Dynamic Load Balancing

    2. Least Connection Algorithm Explained

    3. Weighted Least Connection Algorithm

    4. How Least Connection Algorithm Works

    5. Thundering Herd Problem

    6. When to use Least Connection Algorithm

    7. Least Response Time Algorithm

    8. When to choose Least Response Time

    9. Hybrid Load Balancing Implementations

    1. AWS Load Balancers

    2. Comparing AWS Load Balancer Options

    3. Cloud Load Balancer Best Practices

    4. Google Cloud Load Balancers

    5. Azure Load Balancers

    1. Least Bandwidth Algorithm

    2. Resource Based Load Balancing

    3. Adaptive Load Balancing

    4. Sticky Sessions with Load Balancing

    5. Power of Two Choices Algorithm

    6. The Join Idle Queue Architecture for Load Balancing

    7. IP Hashing

    8. Centralized Session Stores

    9. Token Based Authentication

    10. Active and Passive Health Checks

    11. Health Check Best Practices

About this course

  • $50.00
  • 77 lessons
  • 8.5 hours of video content

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