Score:1

Load balancing: how to find the fastest route to a user

us flag

I’m thinking about it like a week. Consider that we have a load balancer server, and two storage servers, X and Y. A user connects to load balancer. Load balancer should decide which of that two servers could have the fastest route to the user, then redirects the incoming request. Please note that the choice must have the fastest response to user. Not to load balancer. Any ideas?

us flag
Since the user connects to load balancer, fastest connection from user to X or Y is the same as fastest connection from server to X or Y, since connection time from user to X is t_X + t_Z, where Z is the load balancer.
Soroush Bgm avatar
us flag
@TeroKilkanen No it’s not the same. Load balancer only redirects the incoming request. But another server ( X or Y ) would send data to the user.
us flag
You need to then clarify what exact type of load balancer you mean. HTTP/HTTPS load balancers terminate the incoming HTTP/HTTPS connection, and then connect to server X or Y to get the content and send it back to the client. This is the most common load balancer, and in that case my statement is true.
Soroush Bgm avatar
us flag
@TeroKilkanen Consider it as a triangle. One side is user requesting the load balancer, one side is load balancer forwarding the request to server X, and the last side is user downloads data from server X. And yes it is HTTP[S] based.
us flag
That is not how HTTPS load balancer works. The load balancer downloads from origin server, and relays the response back to client. There isn't a system like you are describing.
Score:2
pe flag

I think your solution is implement CDN (Content Delivery Network).

A content delivery network, or content distribution network, is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end users.

I suggest you check Google Cloud CDN, there are other CDN providers such as Cloudflare, StackPath, Sucuri and others.

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