# Load Balancing and the Power of Hashing

DevFeed: [Load Balancing and the Power of Hashing](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/load-balancing-and-the-power-of-hashing-40393.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.jeremykun.com/2015/12/28/load-balancing-and-the-power-of-hashing/>)

Published: 2015-12-28T09:00:31Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Jeremy Kun](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/jeremy-kun.md>)

Topics: [function](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/function.md>), [Load Balancing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/load-balancing.md>), [Algorithms, Complexity](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/algorithms-complexity.md>), [math](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/math.md>)

Tags: [abstraction](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/abstraction.md>), [algorithm](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/algorithm.md>), [algorithms](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/algorithms.md>), [chebyshev](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/chebyshev.md>), [hashing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hashing.md>), [load-balancing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/load-balancing.md>), [math](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/math.md>), [mathematics](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mathematics.md>), [programming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/programming.md>), [python](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/python.md>), [software](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains why hashing is useful when processing data too large for a single machine. It introduces hash functions and families of hash functions, then applies their properties to efficient resource allocation through load balancing.

## Source excerpt

Here's a bit of folklore I often hear (and retell) that's somewhere between a joke and deep wisdom: if you're doing a software interview that involves some algorithms problem that seems hard, your best bet is to use hash tables. More succinctly put: Google loves hash tables. As someone with a passion for math and theoretical CS, it's kind of silly and reductionist. But if you actually work with terabytes of data that can't fit on a single machine, it also makes sense.