Top Load Balancing Metrics You Need to Keep an Eye On

They say the only constant thing in this world is change—this adage is even truer in the business world, where the ever-changing trends and consumer demands are constantly prompting businesses to refine their processes to continue delivering customer value.

Businesses across all industries now implement technological processes to generate positive results in these increasingly digital times. Particularly, they are relying heavily on their IT departments’ ability to manage access to the cloud for data storage and computing services.

If your organization uses cloud services, you can maintain consistent system performance and continue to drive business growth by tracking these top load balancing metrics on your dashboard.

1. Active Connection Count

Otherwise referred to as active flow count, this metric gives you an idea of the active connections between clients and target servers. Consequently, having access to this information helps you determine if you have the right level of scaling and if work is spread across your network appropriately.

2. Failed Connection Count

This is the opposite of the first item and refers to connections that are rejected. This is also worth monitoring because it gives you an idea of the number of users that are turned away due to various reasons.

A connection is rejected if your system has already reached its capacity of user requests, but this could also happen if there are not enough healthy load balancers available. That said, observing this metric alerts you of any abnormal network activity or a wrong level of scale so you can address them promptly.

3. Request Counts

This refers to the sum of all requests that come in from all your load balancers. However, aside from the number, this metric also provides you with information you can use for other studies.

For example, you can correlate the total sum of all the requests with the number and type of users your services support within its range. Doing so may give you an idea of routing or network connection issues that may otherwise be left unnoticed. On the other hand, request counts per minute give you an idea of the efficiency of load balancing across the system.

4. Latency

This refers to the amount of time it takes for the load balancer to receive a request and return a response.

You should keep an eye on this metric because it is directly related to your users’ experience. A high latency time indicates that your application or website may be running slowly—something that can frustrate users and prompt them to use other services.

5. Error Rates

Closely monitoring this metric helps you gain insights as to the performance of your services. Depending on your needs, you can choose to track error rates over time or on a per-load-balancer level.

Moreover, you can track error rates in the front-end (which refers to requests returned to the client) to identify configuration errors. Monitoring back-end errors, on the other hand, help you recognize issues in the communication between the server and the balancers.

Leverage load balancer products

Some of the biggest benefits of load balancing are optimal speed and reliability for your application or website. However, you can only achieve these through the efficient monitoring of the metrics mentioned above. This will give you all the insights you need to refine your procedures and revise your strategy if necessary.

Another smart option is to integrate a load balancing software into your IT processes. Leveraging these smart solutions existing in the market will grant you increased scalability, reduced downtime, and improved flexibility—everything you need to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers.

Load Balancing Solutions by Resonate

Resonate is a load balancing software company dedicated to providing top-quality services for each customer. We have one goal: to utilize our solutions to help you improve your business’ applications and systems and meet high network traffic demands. Contact us today to learn more about what we can offer you!