A load balancer is used to distribute network or application traffic across multiple servers, which improves responsiveness and increases availability of applications. It is designed to prevent any one server from becoming overloaded with too much traffic, which can degrade performance or cause outages. Proxies may balance requests but are not primarily designed for load balancing, while an IPS/IDS focuses on monitoring and analyzing network traffic for any malicious activity. Jump servers are utilized to manage access to devices within a security zone.