What are the main tasks and functions performed by a load balancer?

A load balancer distributes incoming traffic or requests among multiple servers or resources to ensure high availability and system performance. Main tasks and functions:

• Load distribution: evenly distributes requests so that no single server is overwhelmed.
• Increased fault tolerance: redirects traffic to operational nodes if one server fails.
• Improved scalability: allows adding or removing servers without interrupting operation.
• Server health monitoring: checks the availability and functionality of servers.
• Support for various load balancing algorithms: round-robin, least connections, IP-hash, etc.

Example: if you have a web application on three servers, the load balancer will direct user requests so that the load is evenly distributed and, in case of one server failure, traffic is redirected to the remaining servers.