Performance of Hybrid Load Balancing Algorithm in Distributed Web Server System

Abstract

The challenges that load balancing (LB) faces are that there may not always be enough physical servers to be able to handle the demand requested at any one time. If a huge influx of players comes online at the same time, there may just not be enough room for them all. In this case, the server would usually initiate a queue system where players are held before they are allowed to attempt to connect to the world server. If too many requests are made however, the load balancer itself may stop working and deny players access completely. These challenges are specific to the Client/Server model of game content distribution. The proposed hybrid Grid model has a slightly different set of challenges. The load balancer in this model has to constantly check the network for player disconnections so that any outstanding events can be cleaned up by the dedicated hosts. It also has to balance load like normal to these hosts as they will appear as one entity on the network but can be scaled to as many machines as are needed. The popularity of decentralization over recent years has led to issues with the demand on server hardware and the need for LB which generates increased costs for companies and affects the quality of service. The aim of this work was to design and construct a Hybrid load balancing solution for Grid and compare it to the other load balancing algorithms. Grid with a load balancer was written in Java using a modular construction which allowed code reuse between different network models. Four common algorithms, one of which was redeveloped to improve its performance, were compared to determine load balancing efficiency for selecting servers from a pool.