# Load balancing a tie-breaker

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-a-tie-breaker/35907>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 30, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-a-tie-breaker/35907 "2015-11-30T14:42:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mgvarley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mgvarley/32/687_2.png) [@mgvarley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mgvarley)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-a-tie-breaker/35907/1 "2015-11-30T14:42:27Z")

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Hi - I am hosting my Elasticsearch cluster on AWS and following best advice in the docs I have a setup with 2 r3.xlarge instances with a t2.small instance acting as a tie-breaker and min\_master set to 2. I have read that it is advisable to load balance the instances to try avoid a hot node but my question is should I include the tie-breaker in the load balancer or just balance across the larger data nodes? Many thanks for any advice, could not see this explicitly mentioned in the docs.

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-a-tie-breaker/35907/2 "2015-11-30T21:33:53Z")

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Just do it on the two data nodes.

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**Author:** ![mgvarley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mgvarley/32/687_2.png) [@mgvarley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mgvarley)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2015, 8:05am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-a-tie-breaker/35907/3 "2015-12-01T08:05:13Z")

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Thanks as ever for the quick and helpful response Mark

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-a-tie-breaker/35907/4 "2017-07-05T23:34:34Z")

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