What is the Difference Between Weighted Load Balancing vs Round Robin Load Balancing?

The primary difference between Weighted Load Balancing and Round Robin Load Balancing lies in how they distribute incoming traffic among servers.

Round Robin Load Balancing

Round Robin Load Balancing is a straightforward method where incoming requests are distributed sequentially across a pool of servers. Each server receives an equal number of requests in a cyclic order. For example, if there are three servers (A, B, and C), the first request goes to Server A, the second to Server B, the third to Server C, and the fourth request goes back to Server A, continuing in this round-robin fashion. This method is simple to implement and works best when all servers have similar capabilities and resources[1][5][8].

Weighted Round Robin Load Balancing

Weighted Round Robin Load Balancing builds on the basic Round Robin method by introducing weights to each server. These weights are assigned based on the server's capacity, performance, or other criteria. Servers with higher weights receive a larger proportion of the traffic. For instance, if Server A has a weight of 3, Server B has a weight of 2, and Server C has a weight of 1, the load balancer will send three requests to Server A, two to Server B, and one to Server C in each cycle. This method allows for more efficient utilization of server resources, especially when servers have varying capacities[2][3][4][5].

Key Differences

1. Traffic Distribution:

   • Round Robin: Distributes traffic equally among all servers.
   • Weighted Round Robin: Distributes traffic based on assigned weights, allowing more capable servers to handle more requests.

2. Server Capacity Consideration:

   • Round Robin: Assumes all servers have equal capacity.
   • Weighted Round Robin: Takes into account the different capacities of servers, optimizing resource utilization.

3. Implementation Complexity:

   • Round Robin: Simple to implement and configure.
   • Weighted Round Robin: Slightly more complex due to the need to assign and manage weight...