Which term refers to a system that automatically balances the load among multiple servers?

The term that refers to a system that automatically balances the load among multiple servers is the Load Balancer. A load balancer is a critical component in network architecture that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers. This ensures that no single server becomes overwhelmed with too much traffic, which helps maintain optimal performance and availability of web services.

By intelligently routing user requests to different servers based on current load, health, and other factors, load balancers help improve response times and reduce downtime. They can also enhance redundancy by routing traffic to backup servers in case of server failure.

While proxy servers can handle requests and serve as intermediaries, they do not inherently balance workloads. Gateways serve as points of access to other networks and do not perform load balancing functions, and content delivery networks focus on distributing content geographically to reduce latency rather than balancing server loads directly. Thus, the load balancer stands out as the dedicated tool for optimizing server utilization and ensuring service resilience.