What technique improves application performance by distributing functions across multiple servers?

The technique that improves application performance by distributing functions across multiple servers is clustering. Clustering involves linking multiple servers together to work as a single system, effectively sharing the workload among them. This architecture enhances availability and reliability, as if one server fails, the others in the cluster can take over its tasks, ensuring that applications remain operational.

In addition to increased availability, clustering can also enhance performance by allowing multiple servers to handle user requests simultaneously. This distribution of tasks can lead to faster response times and improved user experiences, especially for applications that require high availability or handle a significant amount of user traffic.

While load balancing, another relevant technique, also distributes workloads, it specifically refers to the process of distributing incoming traffic across multiple servers to optimize resource use, enhance throughput, reduce response time, and avoid overload on any single server. Therefore, load balancing is more focused on managing network traffic rather than forming a cohesive unit of servers to distribute functions, which is the primary purpose of clustering.

Virtualization involves creating virtual instances of servers or operating systems on a single physical server but does not inherently distribute functions across multiple servers. Similarly, encryption is a security measure that protects data and does not relate to improving application performance through distributed functions.