Loadsharing

Load sharing is the practice of distributing workload, traffic, or demand across multiple resources to improve performance, utilization, and resilience. The goal is to prevent overloading any single resource and to maintain service levels even as demand fluctuates. Effective load sharing relies on timely visibility of capacity and coordination among resources.

In computing and networks, load sharing is most visible as load balancing. A pool of servers or services receives requests or tasks according to algorithms such as round-robin, least connections, or adaptive methods. Health checks remove failed nodes, session persistence can be maintained when needed, and dynamic reallocation responds to changing load. Hardware, software, and cloud-based balancers can be involved.

In power systems, load sharing coordinates generation to keep frequency stable and system within limits. Generators respond via governor control and droop characteristics, distributing demand across units and tie-lines. In logistics and service operations, load sharing distributes work to balance capacity and reduce delays, while challenges include data accuracy, synchronization, and preventing oscillations.