What is the main function of load balancers in cloud infrastructure?

The main function of load balancers in cloud infrastructure is to distribute network or application traffic. Load balancers play a critical role in ensuring that no single server becomes overwhelmed with too much traffic, which could lead to slow responses or even server failures. By distributing the workload evenly across multiple servers, load balancers improve the reliability and performance of applications. This distribution helps maintain optimal resource use and can also facilitate redundancy, thereby enhancing the overall availability of services.

In cloud environments, where user demand can vary significantly, load balancers dynamically route user requests to the least busy or most appropriate server based on predefined algorithms, enhancing user experience and optimizing resource utilization. This fundamental role supports scalability by allowing additional servers to be added as necessary without disrupting service.

While securing data, monitoring user activity, and conducting backups are important functions in cloud management, they do not directly pertain to the distribution of incoming traffic, which is the primary purpose of load balancers.