Final answer:
Load balancers consider server load, server health checks, network latency, traffic distribution methods, session persistence, and WAN throughput to manage network traffic effectively.
Step-by-step explanation:
Load balancers are crucial systems for managing network traffic across multiple servers. Some of the key factors that load balancers take into consideration when distributing traffic include:
- Current server load: This ensures that no single server becomes overburdened while others are underutilized.
- Server health checks: Regular checks are conducted to ensure servers are up and running and able to handle requests.
- Network latency: A good load balancer aims to minimize latency by routing traffic to the server that can provide the fastest response.
- Traffic distribution methods: This could be round-robin, least connections, IP hash, and more sophisticated dynamic content-based routing.
- Session persistence: Sometimes called 'sticky sessions', this method directs a client's requests to the same server to maintain session integrity.
- WAN throughput: Balancers consider the amount of data that can be efficiently transferred over a wide-area network.