juniorLoad Balancing
What is a VIP (Virtual IP)?
Updated Apr 28, 2026
Short answer
A single IP address assigned to the load balancer that clients connect to, which then masks the multiple backend server IPs.
Deep explanation
Load balancing is critical for horizontal scaling. By sitting in front of a server farm, it ensures no single server becomes a bottleneck. It also provides high availability; if one server fails, the LB stops sending traffic to it until it recovers.
Real-world example
A small website using Nginx to split traffic between two identical web servers.
Common mistakes
- Forgetting to configure health checks, causing the LB to send traffic to crashed servers.
Follow-up questions
- What is a reverse proxy?