eCommerce websites can apply load balancer techniques to ensure that their website keeps running smoothly even when there is high traffic. Load balancer hosting is the technique of distributing incoming network traffic among several servers. It ensures that no server is overloaded. Thereby, increasing uptime and website performance.

Flash sales or similar peak hours can result in an enormous increase in traffic for eCommerce stores. For instance, traffic on Black Friday was 2x more than that of a typical October day. This surge often overwhelms servers and leads to slow load times. It is a technical nightmare consisting of higher latency, overloaded servers, and security risks

This is when load balancer hosting can work in your favour by distributing traffic intelligently and preventing server overloads. It keeps your website up and running, no matter how high the traffic soars.

Read on to explore how load balancer hosting works and its benefits.

What Is Load Balancing?

Load balancing is the process of distributing network traffic or computational workloads across multiple servers or resources. It aims to

  • Optimise performance
  • Ensure high availability
  • Prevent any single resource from becoming overwhelmed
  • Allocate requests based on server health
  • Enhance system responsiveness

The load balancer uses a number of algorithms to decide which web server should respond to a request made by a user on a website. There are two types of load-balancing algorithms:

  • Static Load Balancing: The server workload is distributed based on fixed rules. These technologies are very straightforward in terms of implementation, but still can have flaws.
  • Dynamic Load Balancing: Before allocating workloads to servers, they consider several parameters. This covers both the server’s general health and the specific capacity required for each operation. Dynamic algorithms are typically superior since they are more analytical, but they are also more challenging to set up.
Also Read: Ideal Storage and Bandwidth for Aussie eCommerce Sites

How Load Balancer Hosting Handles eCommerce Traffic Spikes?

Load balancers function as reverse proxies by receiving incoming requests and routing them to the most accessible server.

Here is a detailed account of how they work:

1. Dynamic Traffic Distribution

A load balancer’s functionality is its ability to distribute incoming requests intelligently. During traffic spikes, it employs algorithms such as round-robin or IP-hash to evenly spread requests across multiple servers. As a result of this active redistribution, no single server becomes a bottleneck.

For example, if a promotion causes a tenfold increase in visitors, the load balancer –

  • Quickly adapts to the spike
  • Reroutes traffic to underutilised servers
  • Maintains a smooth UX
Pro Tip: Implement algorithms like least connections or IP-hash for better session affinity and load distribution.

2. Auto-Scaling Integration

Normally, auto-scaling methods are integrated along with the modern load balancers, specifically in cloud environments. When the traffic gets beyond the set levels, the load balancer informs the orchestration system to automatically create new server instances. On the contrary, it reduces resources to minimise expenses as traffic decreases.

3. Session Persistence and Sticky Sessions

During high traffic periods, you need to maintain session state for shopping carts or user logins. Here, load balancers use cookies or IP affinity to administer session persistence or sticky sessions.

This ensures that a user’s requests during a spike are regularly routed to the same server. In the absence of functionality, customers may encounter lost carts or frequent logins, resulting in abandoned transactions.

4. Rate Limiting and Throttling

Specific users or IP addresses might generate too many requests, leading to an overload of system resources. Load balancers administer throttling and rate limitation methods to control the request rate from specific users or IPs.

By doing this, they ensure equitable resource distribution. It helps to keep the system stable during spikes and to stop any one user from bringing down the performance.

Pro Tip: Establish the thresholds with a lot of caution. Limit 100 requests per second per IP to prevent abuse without impacting legitimate traffic.

5. Content Caching and Offloading

Load balancers support content caching, which stores static assets closer to the user, like

  • Images
  • CSS
  • JavaScript files

In addition, the load balancers can take care of the SSL termination. They decrease the processing load on the application servers for faster response times.

Also Read: Cloud Hosting with Load Balancers: Explained for SMEs

6. SSL Termination

Encrypting and decrypting SSL/TLS traffic can put a heavy burden on backend servers during periods of high traffic. This can cause latency and decreased throughput.

In order to solve this, load balancers offload the encryption and decryption process from application servers through SSL termination. They encrypt Incoming requests at the edge to enable backend servers to handle requests as plain HTTP traffic.

Scale Uptime with Load Balancer Hosting!

Many contemporary load balancers feature the capacity to add or drop servers without affecting site performance. Merchants can simply pay for the computing capability they ultimately use in cloud environments like AWS.

Thus, the load balancer effortlessly adds more servers when network traffic increases. Additionally, businesses can lay off certain servers to save expenditure when traffic declines.

Get up to 4x faster hosting for your business with Crazy Domains. We offer high bandwidth tolerance and speed assurance to ensure your website never keeps visitors waiting.

Enjoy lightning-fast load times and peak performance for your eCommerce store!