Routing and load balancing in Microservices - Cheat Sheet & Quick Revision

Recall & Review

beginner

What is routing in the context of microservices?

Routing is the process of directing incoming requests to the correct microservice based on the request's URL, headers, or other attributes.

beginner

Define load balancing in simple terms.

Load balancing means spreading incoming requests evenly across multiple servers or instances to avoid overload and improve performance.

intermediate

Name two common load balancing algorithms.

Two common algorithms are Round Robin (requests go in order to each server) and Least Connections (requests go to the server with the fewest active connections).

beginner

Why is routing important in microservices architecture?

Routing ensures that each request reaches the correct microservice, enabling services to be independent and scalable.

advanced

What role does a service mesh play in routing and load balancing?

A service mesh manages routing and load balancing between microservices automatically, providing features like retries, circuit breaking, and observability.

Which load balancing method sends requests to servers in a fixed order?

A Least Connections

B Random

C Round Robin

D IP Hash

Round Robin cycles through servers in order, sending each new request to the next server.

What does routing primarily depend on in microservices?

A Request attributes like URL or headers

B Server CPU usage

C Database size

D User's screen resolution

Routing uses request details such as URL paths or headers to decide which microservice should handle the request.

Which component often handles routing and load balancing in a microservices system?

A Cache

B Database

C Frontend UI

D API Gateway

API Gateways route requests to microservices and often perform load balancing.

What is a benefit of load balancing?

A Slows down request processing

B Prevents any single server from getting overloaded

C Increases database size

D Removes the need for routing

Load balancing spreads requests to avoid overloading servers, improving reliability and speed.

Which of these is NOT a load balancing algorithm?

A First Come First Served

B Round Robin

C Least Connections

D IP Hash

"First Come First Served" is a scheduling concept, not a load balancing algorithm.

Explain how routing and load balancing work together in a microservices system.

Think about how requests find the right service and how servers share the work.

Describe common load balancing algorithms and when you might use each.

Consider simple fairness vs. server load vs. client affinity.