What is Software Load Balancing? | VMware Glossary

Software-based load balancers may be installed directly onto a server, or they may be purchased as load balancer as a service (LBaaS). With LBaaS, the service provider is responsible for installing, configuring, and managing the load balancing software. The software-based load balancer may be located on-premises or off.

Like servers, load balancing appliances can be physical or virtual. Physical (hardware load balancing) and virtual (software load balancing) appliances both evaluate client requests and server usage in real time and send requests to different servers based on a variety of algorithms. Where the traffic is sent depends on the load balancing policy set by the administrator.