What is load balancing in distributed data processing systems?

Load balancing distributes workloads evenly across computing resources to avoid bottlenecks.

In distributed systems, uneven workload distribution leads to performance degradation. Load balancing ensures tasks are evenly assigned to workers based on CPU, memory, or queue length. Techniques include round-robin, least connections, and consistent hashing. In data processing, partition-aware load balancing is crucial to avoid skew.