Performance Improvement in Cloud Computing Environment by Load Balancing-A Comprehensive Review

With the advent of cloud computing, the affinity between business and technology had increased manifold, allowing users to access IT resources at their convenience through the pay-per-use scheme. With such huge demand surging day to day, the cloud environment must cater to the user requirements flawlessly and also should be rewarding to the providers of cloud service. To maintain its high level of efficiency, there are several challenges that the cloud environment should tackle. One amongst those challenges is the balancing of load. It is one of the primary features of cloud computing that focuses on avoiding the overloading of nodes where there may be idle nodes or nodes with lesser load present at the same juncture. By keeping an effective check on the load several the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters including response time, throughput, resource utilization, energy consumption, cost etc., can be improved, adding to better performance of the entire cloud environment. Even distribution of load among datacenters will contribute to optimal energy consumption and keeps a check on carbon emissions. In this paper we have presented a methodical review on literature pertaining to load balancing strategies that had been proposed in the cloud environment. We had made in-depth analyses of available load balancing techniques and had come up with their advantages, limitations along with the challenges to be addressed by researchers for developing efficient load balancing strategies in the near future. We had also suggested prospective insights about the aspects in load balancing that could be applied in the cloud environment.