- Hardware devices (like the one pictured above) that physically live in organizations’ IT departments or data centers.
- Software solutions that can be installed on physical or virtual machines in data centers, on-premises, or in the cloud.
Organizations looking for simple load balancing capabilities should go for standard hardware or software-based load balancers as these are cost-effective and easy to install and manage. Some vendors combine load balancing functionality with additional capabilities, such as security features. For example, Loadbalancer.org appliances come complete with a web application firewall (WAF) as a standard feature.
Load balancers are most commonly deployed in active-passive pairs to ensure zero downtime in business-critical applications. All traffic can then be redirected to the redundant device, both to provide business continuity in the event of a failure and to remove the need for scheduled downtime for maintenance.