How to Create a Load Balancer and Connect it across 2 VMs?

Last Updated : 24 Oct, 2023

Load Balancer is basically defined as a distributing device that is used to distribute the work Processes into different systems/servers. It is generally used to control the traffic on one system by dividing the flow of traffic into different systems. In other words, A load balancer is a networking device or software component that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers or resources in order to optimize resource utilization, maximize throughput, and ensure high availability and reliability of applications or services.

When To Use Load Balancer?

The main purpose of a load balancer is to evenly distribute the incoming traffic load among multiple servers or resources, preventing any single server from becoming overwhelmed by excessive requests. By doing so, a load balancer helps in achieving efficient utilization of resources, improving response times, and preventing individual servers from becoming a single point of failure.

Load balancers can be implemented in various ways, including hardware-based appliances, virtual appliances, or as part of software-defined networking (SDN) solutions. They typically monitor the health and performance of the servers or resources behind them, and if a server becomes unavailable or starts experiencing issues, the load balancer can automatically reroute traffic to healthy servers, ensuring high availability.

Uses of Load Balancer

It is used to handle the traffic of any big organization where data of different departments is handled with the help of a load balancer Basically there Virtual Machines are created to handle different departments of the organization like HR, the Finance department, etc.

Basically, it is used where there is so much traffic across a system so it distributes it to different systems and balances the load.

There are so many uses of Load balancing some of them are as follow

They are very useful in balancing heavy traffic on a single Machine.
It Improves the Scalability of the systems.
Data is easily handled and it is also safe.
They are Mostly used to transfer the work according to the Work Processes in Transport Management.

As the name suggests Load Balancer " so it used to control the load on one system"

Steps To Configure Load Balancer

We can create a load Balancer step by step:

Step 1: First of all we have to Log in to the AWS account. To know how to create an AWS account refer to Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Free Tier Account Set up.

Step 2: Now Here we have to verify the region in which the infrastructure will be created in the upper right corner, and set the region according to the requirements.

Step 3: Now select the EC2 Services.

Step 4: Go to the Load Balancer Section to create a load balancer.

Select load balancer — Selecting load balancer

Step 5: Now Here we have to press the button to create a load Balancer.

Step 6: Now Here we have to select the type of load balancer.

>> Layer 4 or Layer 7

Step 7: Assign it a name VPC and the Listener. and select the port where it accepts the traffic and where it will be redirected (Virtual machines).

Step 8: Establish the Subnet.

Step 9: Create a Security Group, especially for the Load Balancer, only open ports 80 and 443.

Step 10: Upload SSL Certificate to create it.

Step 11: Select the instance Previously Created.

Step 12: Review all the settings and Create the Load Balancer.

Now the Load Balancer is Created and now links with two virtual machines to distribute the data at two virtual Machines. Overall, load balancers play a crucial role in enabling efficient and reliable distribution of network traffic, ensuring that applications and services can handle high loads, remain available, and provide a positive user experience.

After creating the Load Balancer we have to perform Health checks to check the working and performance of the virtual machines these Health checks are performed on a regular basis to continuously Inspect the flow and working of virtual machines. so we can say that Health checks play an important role in the smooth working of the load Balancer and the virtual machines connected with them.

In Last it is very important to note that the exact steps and terminology may differ depending on your cloud provider or infrastructure setup Like in AWS( Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure Portal, etc. Therefore, referring to the documentation or support resources provided by your specific cloud provider will provide more detailed guidance on creating and configuring a load balancer in your environment.