METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LOAD BALANCING

• US 20120191839A1
• Filed: 03/29/2012
• Published: 07/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: William Pat Maynard
• Original Assignee: William Pat Maynard
• Inventors: Maynard, William Pat
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,445 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3433 for load management allocation of a server based on load conditions G06F9/505; load rebalancing G06F9/5083; redistributing the load in a network by a load balancer H04L67/1029
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/501 Performance criteria
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided in which a multi-site load balancing system directs a client to a site best able to respond to the client'"'"'s request based on a combination of balancing methods. Performance metric balancing is employed to select sites having the best performance metrics to participate in network latency balancing to determine the site best able to respond the request. The sites participating in the network latency balancing are selected based on having performance metrics within an allowable deviation of the best performance metric. Alternatively, network latency balancing is employed to select sites having the least network latency to participate in performance metric balancing to determine the site best able to respond to the request.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a single client name server DNS (Domain Name Service) request;

in response to the single client name server DNS request, applying a series of load balancing methods, wherein the series of load balancing methods includes a first load balancing method and a second load balancing method to be applied in a sequence, wherein;

the first load balancing method is based on at least one performance metric of respective Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request; and

the second load balancing method comprises coordinating multiple ones of the Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request to respond to the single client name server DNS request at the same time by simultaneously sending, respective, DNS responses to the single client name server DNS request to the client name server.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises determining a strict subset of the Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the DNS request.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises load balancing based on a number of connections metric of the respective Domain Name Service servers.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises load balancing based on a latency metric of the respective Domain Name Service servers.

5. A computer program, disposed on a computer readable medium, comprising instructions which, when executed, are capable of causing a processor to:

receive a single client name server DNS (Domain Name Service) request;

in response to the single client name server DNS request, apply a series of load balancing methods, wherein the series of load balancing methods includes a first load balancing method and a second load balancing method to be applied in a sequence, wherein;

the first load balancing method is based on at least one performance metric of respective Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request; and

the second load balancing method comprises coordinating multiple ones of the Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request to respond to the single client name server DNS request at the same time by simultaneously sending, respective, DNS responses to the single DNS request to the client name server.

6. The computer program of claim 5,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises determining a strict subset of the Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the DNS request.

7. The computer program of claim 5,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises load balancing based on a number of connections metric of the respective Domain Name Service servers.

8. The computer program of claim 5,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises load balancing based on a latency metric of the respective Domain Name Service servers.

9. A system, comprising logic to:

receive a single client name server DNS (Domain Name Service) request;

in response to the single client name server DNS request, apply a series of load balancing methods, wherein the series of load balancing methods includes a first load balancing method and a second load balancing method to be applied in a sequence, wherein;

the first load balancing method is based on at least one performance metric of respective Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request; and

the second load balancing method comprises coordinating multiple ones of the Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request to respond to the single client name server DNS request at the same time by simultaneously sending, respective, DNS responses to the single DNS request to the client name server.

10. The system of claim 9,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises determining a strict subset of the Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the DNS request.

11. The system of claim 9,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises load balancing based on a number of connections metric of the respective Domain Name Service servers.

12. The system of claim 9,

wherein the first load balancing method comprises load balancing based on a latency metric of the respective Domain Name Service servers.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the system comprises a network device.