So, Which One Is the Best?

Load balancing is a theoretically complicated problem. In and of itself, it is an academically difficult problem to solve completely. But, Given the constrained nature of most web environments and a good engineer, many adequate solutions are available today.

Because load balancing is a tricky academic problem, most of the solutions available are ad-hoc systems for solving real-world, web-based, load-balancing problems. Some are naive, others are extremely insightful, but most importantly, all of them seem to have their place.

Throughout the rest of this book, we will look at various architectural challenges, and when load balancing is part of the solution, we will discuss why the technology presented is a good fit.