DNS load balancing – Definition

DNS load balancing is a very commonly used technique for achieving the optimal management of the incoming traffic of a hostname. It provides an organized and effective way of spreading the inbound network or application traffic across multiple servers.

If you are an owner of a very popular website, suddenly you would notice that the traffic is going to be a lot. It is going to receive many numerous requests from customers and users. For each of these requests, it is going to be necessary to return a fast and accurate answer with the exact piece of data, such as video, text, and images. In addition, the whole process must be completed in a secure and reliable way.

Different types of Load balancing

First, the DNS load balancers are going to utilize several criteria and examine the incoming traffic. The next second step for them is to choose and determine to let the traffic proceed or, in another circumstance, to stop it. They can decide to redirect it to a different server based on a load of a packet at a particular moment.

How does it work?

For the purpose to understand better the process in which DNS load balancing works, it is best to follow its usual order:

1. Traffic gets to your website. Users and clients create a lot of requests toward your website’s server by the Internet.
2. The traffic is distributed over the server resources. The load balancer takes each request and directs it to an appropriate server.
3. Each server operates with a reasonable workload. The server receives the request, and it decides to accept it. Next, it replies with an answer to the balancer in case it is not flooded with too many requests.
4. The server responds to the query. Finally, the process is completed again but in a backward direction to carry the server’s response back to the user.

Why is DNS load balancing best for traffic management?

There are a couple of main ideas for implementing DNS load balancing: 

• Speed. The most apparent purpose is better speed. There is no uncertainty regarding that. If there is a DNS network of servers including many locations all around the world, your visitor is going to get much faster responses. Speed is a severe factor for SEO. Therefore you can positively have an advantage above your competitor with a well-configured DNS balancer. 
• Security. As we previously mentioned, it is capable of examining the incoming traffic. It could check the data packets for errors and prevent malicious efforts to harm your DNS server. It could prevent severe difficulties leading to data breaches, phishing attacks on your customers, downtime, and more. 
• Reliability. Directing the traffic among the multiple DNS servers could prevent DDoS attacks and be beneficial even in everyday situations. Picture that you have a sale on your website, and you are aware that a peak of traffic during a particular time is possible. If you don’t have additional help, your website could crash, and you will have lots of annoyed clients. This could perhaps harm your brand. 

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