Architecture and method having redundancy in active/active stateful devices based on symmetric global load balancing protocol (sGLBP)
First Claim
1. In a server farm, method for directing traffic to achieve a symmetrical traffic flow, said method comprising:
- Controlling in-bound traffic from a client to a server along a selected traffic path; and
Controlling out-bound traffic from said server to said client by supplying a gateway MAC address that corresponds to said selected traffic path.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An architecture, arrangement, system, and method for or controlling traffic flow into and out of a server farm having active-active stateful devices. A symmetric Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (sGLBP) eliminates asymmetric traffic flow for out-bound traffic. Load distribution for in-bound traffic is balanced between a redundant pair of aggregation switches using either static host routes, Route Health Injection or in a more general manner, with external routes with a mask longer than the connected subnet advertised by the routing protocol. The return traffic is symmetric because it returns through the same aggregation switch that it came from. Similarly, traffic originating from a server farm exits from one of the redundant aggregation switches and returns from the same aggregation switch.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. In a server farm, method for directing traffic to achieve a symmetrical traffic flow, said method comprising:
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Controlling in-bound traffic from a client to a server along a selected traffic path; and
Controlling out-bound traffic from said server to said client by supplying a gateway MAC address that corresponds to said selected traffic path. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for symmetrically directing traffic to a server farm comprising:
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Dividing said server farm into at least two artificial subnets;
Associating servers in each of said artificial subnets with an aggregation router;
Installing a route on said aggregation router for inbound client to server traffic; and
Advertising the associated subnet from an aggregation router to at least one core router. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A server farm comprising:
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means for artificially partitioning said server farm into a plurality of subnets;
a plurality of peer aggregation routers adapted to advertise one of a plurality of virtual IP addresses for each subnet of said server farm, said addresses installed by injecting an inbound route;
each of said peer aggregation routers having a protocol for responding to a gateway request from a server in one of said subnets with a MAC address of one of said peer aggregation routers corresponding to the advertised address; and
at least one stateful device coupled between said aggregation routers and said server farm in transparent mode such that both the inbound traffic path and the outbound traffic path pass through said at least one stateful device. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification