DATABASE LOAD BALANCING THROUGH DYNAMIC DATABASE ROUTING

• US 20120284296A1
• Filed: 05/06/2011
• Published: 11/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Arifuddin, Syed, Roy, Amit, Jagannanthan, Venugopal
• Granted Patent: US 8,458,210 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1027 Persistence of sessions during load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding

Abstract

A computing cluster may include servers that connect database servers. In one implementation, a server may receive a resource request from a client and extract a session identifier from the resource request. The server may determine, based on the session identifier, one of the database servers to use in fulfilling the resource request.

Claims

1. A device-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by the device, a resource request from a client;

extracting, by the device, a session identifier from the resource request;

determining, by the device and based on the session identifier, a database server, of a plurality of database servers, to use in fulfilling the resource request;

generating, by the device, a response to the resource request based on data received from one or more tables of the determined database server, the data including at least a value relating to the session identifier; and

transmitting, by the device, the response to the client, the response including the value, where the value is returned by the client at least as part of the session identifier for subsequent resource requests.

2. The method of claim 1, where the session identifier is extracted from the resource request by performing a modulo operation on the session identifier.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, when no session identifier is present in the resource request, the database server to use to fulfill the resource request based one or more pre-configured database servers specified for the device.

4. The method of claim 3, where determining the database server to use to fulfill the resource request includes using a pre-configured preferred database server when the preferred database server is available and using a pre-configured backup database server when the preferred database server is not available.

5. The method of claim 3, where determining the database server to use to fulfill the resource request includes accessing a control table, in one of the database servers, that stores availability information relating to the database servers.

6. The method of claim 3, where the control table is replicated over all of the plurality of database servers.

7. The method of claim 1, where data in the plurality of database servers is replicated throughout the plurality of database servers.

8. The method of claim 1, where generating the response to the resource request includes:

querying the one or more tables of the determined database server, where each record of each of the one or more tables of the determined database server includes a different value relating to the session identifier.

9. The method of claim 1, where extracting the session identifier from the resource request includes extracting the session identifier from a uniform resource identifier (URI) associated with the resource request or receiving the session identifier as a cookie.

10. A computer-readable medium containing programming instructions for execution by one or more processors, the programming instructions including:

instructions to receive a resource request from a client;

instructions to extract a session identifier from the resource request;

instructions to determine, based on the session identifier, a database server, of a plurality of database servers, to use in fulfilling the resource request;

instructions to generate a response to the resource request based on data received from one or more tables of the determined database server, the data including at least a value relating to the session identifier; and

instructions to transmit the response to the client, the response including the value, where the value is returned by the client at least as part of the session identifier for subsequent resource requests.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where the session identifier is extracted from the resource request by performing a modulo operation on the session identifier.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, further comprising:

instructions to determine, when no session identifier is present in the resource request, the database server to use to fulfill the resource request based one or more pre-configured database servers specified for the device.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where data in the plurality of database servers is replicated throughout the plurality of database servers.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where the instructions to generate the response to the resource request further include:

instructions to query the one or more tables of the determined database server, where each record of each of the one or more tables of the determined database server includes a different value relating to the session identifier.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where the instructions to extract the session identifier from the resource request further includes:

instructions to extract the session identifier from a uniform resource identifier (URI) associated with the resource request;

or

instructions to receive the session identifier as a cookie.

16. A system comprising:

a plurality of database servers, each of the plurality of database servers including a control table to store availability information relating to the plurality of database servers; and

a plurality of web servers, coupled to the plurality of database servers, to access one of the plurality of database servers as a preferred database server and another one of the plurality of database servers as a backup database server, the plurality of web servers each to;

receive a resource request from a client;

determine an active database server of the plurality of database servers, to use in fulfilling the resource request, the active database server being determined based on a session identifier included with the resource request, or, when no session identifier is included with the resource request, the active database server being determined based on the availability information;

generate a response to the resource request based on data received from the active database server, the data including at least a value relating to the session identifier; and

transmit the response to the client.

17. The system of claim 16, where the plurality of web servers are further to:

transmit the response to the client as a response that includes the value as the session identifier for the response.

18. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a load balancer to distribute resource requests, received from a plurality of clients, to the plurality of web servers.

19. The system of claim 16, where the plurality of web servers include a first group of the plurality of web servers, located in a first geographic region, and a second group of the plurality of web servers, located in a second, different, geographic region.

20. The system of claim 16, where the plurality of web servers are further to:

extract the session identifier from the resource request by performing a modulo operation on the session identifier.

21. The system of claim 16, where the control table is replicated over all of the plurality of database servers and where data in the plurality of database servers is replicated throughout the database servers.

22. The system of claim 16, where the plurality of web servers are further to:

query records of the active database server, where each record of a table of the active database server includes a different value relating to the session identifier.