simple load balancer with zeromq. Adapted from http://zguide.zeromq.org/py:all#ROUTER-Broker-and-DEALER-Workers

exectute_tasks.py

import zmq
import random
import time

raw_input = input

context = zmq.Context()

# Socket to send messages on
sender = context.socket(zmq.ROUTER)
sender.bind("tcp://*:5557")


print("Press Enter when the workers are ready: ")
_ = raw_input()
print("Sending tasks to workers…")

# Initialize random number generator
random.seed()

# Send 100 tasks
total_msec = 0
for task_nbr in range(100):
    address, _, _ = sender.recv_multipart()

    # Random workload from 1 to 100 msecs
    workload = random.randint(1, 100)
    total_msec += workload

    sender.send_multipart([address, b'', ('%i' % workload).encode('ascii')])

print("Total expected cost: %s msec" % total_msec)

# Give 0MQ time to deliver
time.sleep(1)

worker.py

import sys
import time
import zmq

context = zmq.Context()

# Socket to receive messages on
receiver = context.socket(zmq.REQ)
receiver.connect("tcp://localhost:5557")


# Process tasks forever
while True:
    receiver.send(b'ready')
    s = receiver.recv()

    # Simple progress indicator for the viewer
    sys.stdout.write('.')
    sys.stdout.flush()

    # Do the work
    time.sleep(int(s)*0.001)