Load balancing devices and method therefor

• US 20060053424A1
• Filed: 06/28/2002
• Published: 03/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Koistinen, Tommi, Lepanaho, Henrik, Halmet, Karo
• Application Number:
  US10/518,930
• Publication Number:
  US 20060053424A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/105
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/11 Identifying congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1017 based on a round robin mechanism

Abstract

A method of balancing the load of resources in a packet switched connection within a communication system, said system comprising processing units (11; 21) for performing communication, at least one load balancing unit (12; 22) for distributing the load to said processing units (11; 21), and a data storage (14; 24), said method comprising the steps of: obtaining a current connection state as well as a current load state of said processing units from said data storage (14; 24); selecting by said load balancing unit (12; 22) a processing unit on a per-packet basis; and maintaining information about the load state of each processing unit (11; 21) so that said selecting step is performed by selecting a processing unit to serve and process a respective packet based on the load state.

Claims

1-25. -25. (canceled)

26. A method for balancing the load of resources in a packet switched connection within a communication system, said system comprising processing units for performing communication, at least one load balancing unit for distributing the load to said processing units, and a data storage, said method comprising the steps of:

obtaining a current connection state as well as a current load state of said processing units from said data storage;

selecting by said load balancing unit a processing unit on a per packet basis irrespective of a specific connection to which a respective packet belongs;

maintaining information about the load state of each processing unit so that said selecting step is performed by selecting a processing unit to serve and process a respective packet based on the load state.

27. A method according to claim 26, wherein said data storage is accessed to by said load balancing unit.

28. A method according to claim 26, wherein said data storage is accessed to by said processing units.

29. A method according to claim 26, wherein said information about the load state is maintained as a Boolean state.

30. A method according to claim 26, wherein a processing unit is selected in a round-robin fashion.

31. A method according to claim 26, wherein a supported service profile for each processing unit is maintained.

32. A method according to claim 31, wherein said supported service profile is used as additional selection criteria.

33. A method according to claim 26, wherein said load balancing unit obtains a load state from each processing unit upon a hardware based mechanism.

34. A method according to claim 26, wherein said load balancing unit obtains a load state from each processing unit upon a packet based mechanism.

35. A method according to claim 34, wherein a load state of a processing unit is inserted into a packet processed by said unit.

36. A method according to claim 34, wherein a packet returned by a processing unit is interpreted as a flag for a free resource.

37. A method according to claim 26, wherein excess traffic is redirected to another load balancing unit, said excess traffic being defined upon the number of active processing units.

50. A system adapted to perform a method according to claim 26.

38. A device unit for serving and processing packets of a communication connection, comprising:

means adapted to inform a load state of said device to a balancing unit; and

means adapted to obtain a state of said communication connection,

wherein said device unit is adapted to serve and process packets of plural connections.

39. A device unit according to claim 38, wherein said obtaining means is adapted to retrieve said communication connection state from a data storage.

40. A device unit according to claim 38, wherein said obtaining means is adapted to retrieve said communication connection state from a packet being under processing.

41. A device unit for balancing a load of each of multiple processing units performing a packet switched communication connection, comprising:

means for maintaining a load state of each of said processing units; and

means adapted to select a processing unit on the basis of a respective load state on a per packet basis irrespective of a specific connection to which a respective packet belongs.

42. A device according to claim 41, wherein a load state of a processing unit is contained in a table.

43. A device according to claim 41, wherein a load state of a processing unit is expressed as a Boolean value.

44. A device according to claim 41, wherein a load state of a processing unit is expressed as value which corresponds to the percentage of load.

45. A device according to claim 41, wherein said selecting means is adapted such that a processing unit is selected also on the basis of a parameter indicating the service profile supported by a respective processing unit.

46. A device according to claim 45, wherein said parameter is contained in a table.

47. A device according to claim 41, further comprising

means adapted to insert a communication connection state into a packet to be routed.

48. A device according to claim 41, wherein the processing units are comprised of multicore digital signal processing means having a shared data storage for all cores, whereby said device comprises a first level of load balancing for selecting a digital signal processing means and a second level of load balancing for selecting a single core.

49. A device according to claim 41, further comprising

means for redirecting excess traffic to another device, wherein said excess traffic is defined upon the number of active processing units.