Load sharing and load balancing

[Ishan Bhatt]

Hi,
What is the difference between load sharing and load balancing?

I read about these terms in one of the common architecture notes and I'm confused.

Thank you,
Ishan

[Deepak Bala]

Load sharing methods blindly distribute the load to different servers in some order. It does not care about CPU or memory usage or session on that server.

Load balancing methods may distribute the load based on CPU or memory usage or session. They fare better and make your servers more efficient in comparison to load sharing.