HOST-LEVEL POLICIES FOR GLOBAL SERVER LOAD BALANCING

• US 20110264798A1
• Filed: 05/05/2011
• Published: 10/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Joshi, Prajakta S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,862,740 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/10 of different types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/50 Address allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1012 based on compliance of requirements or conditions with available server resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1023 based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1025 Dynamic adaptation of the criteria on which the server selection is based
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

In a network, a user can configure host-level policies usable for load balancing traffic to servers of a domain. A global server load balancing (GSLB) switch provides load balancing to the servers, and is configured with the GSLB host-level policies. Users can define a host-level policy (alternatively or additionally to a globally applied GSLB policy) and apply the host-level policy to hosts in domains configured on the GSLB switch. Thus, the user can enable different policies for different hosts. This allows the user to have the flexibility to control metrics used for selection of a best address for querying clients, as well as the metric order and additional parameters used in the GSLB process, at the host level.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

storage means for storing a first load balancing policy associated with a first domain and a second load balancing policy associated with a second domain different from the first domain; and

network device means for performing load balancing for the first domain by ranking network addresses associated with the first domain according to the first load balancing policy, and for performing load balancing for the second domain by ranking network addresses associated with the second domain according to the second load balancing policy.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said network device means includes a load balancing switch.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said network addresses, associated with either or both the first and second domains and to be ranked by the network device means, include virtual addresses contained in a domain name system (DNS) reply received by the network device means.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein:

said ranking network addresses associated with the first domain includes ordering, by the network device means, the network addresses associated with the first domain according to at least one metric specified in the first load balancing policy; and

said ranking network addresses associated with the second domain includes ordering, by the network device means, the network addresses associated with the second domain according to at least one metric specified in the second load balancing policy.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said network device means also performs load balancing for at least a third domain, by ranking network addresses associated with said at least the third domain according to a global load balancing policy.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said storage means is located in said network device means.