Ways of Balancing Load in Microservice Architecture

Abstract

Microservices architecture has emerged as a modern paradigm to overcome challenges associated with monolithic architecture, such as scalability, deployment, and flexibility. Microservice architecture is a relatively new approach in comparison with other paradigms. It has immense potential to enhance deployment, design, container orchestration, and expansion across different computing environments, such as cloud and edge. One of the most essential features of microservice architecture is its ability to handle scaling and load balancing. The load balancer works with a scaler to distribute load efficiently across multiple instances. This paper explains the basics of load balancing, including static and dynamic algorithms, their applications, and limitations. It emphasizes the crucial role of load balancing in popular microservices orchestrators like Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, and Spring Cloud. Furthermore, we examined the existing state of the art and identified limitations associated with load balancing in microservice architecture. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024.