processing of passing network requests through a single point, which passes them along to one out of a cluster of ultimate servers

Often done with cluster of Web Server-s (which all speak to a single Data Base server)

Needs to be able to determine the "health" of each server, and take unhealthy units out of the cluster: hit status page which provides rich definition of all-green.

If uses "sticky" mapping of user to a single server, you can store session-state on that server with "reasonable" safety.

Sometimes combined with Fire Wall.

Open Source options?

• Balance - http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/07/27/1729229

  • [Balance Ng] - http://www.inlab.de/balance.html

• http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2006/11/06/best-open-source-software-for-a-firewallload-balancer/

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