Perlbal - Perl Reverse-proxy load balancer and web server

Improving web performance and reliability

Perlbal functions as a load balancer and web server, improving reliability and flexibility with the ability to add and remove backend servers on the fly.

As a reverse-proxy server Perlbal sits in front of your application web servers, proxying the inbound user request, enabling the application server to return content to Perlbal and then get on with the next request, even if the user is still downloading the content.

A pool of backend servers can be easily configured and reconfigured on the fly. Perlbal will load balance across this pool and stop using any server which does not respond, allowing transparent fail over and horizontally scalability for your web applications. Indeed Perlbal can use different pools of servers for different URLs, through its Plugin support.

Perlbal is a perfect partner for any web server. Even if you only have one physical server, running it will provide performance benefits (including serving your static content directly) and prepare you for future scaling.

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Article Author

Leo Lapworth