METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR LOAD BALANCING CONTENT DELIVERY SERVERS

• US 20130227100A1
• Filed: 02/27/2012
• Published: 08/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Dobies, Jason Edward, Sanders, Todd Brian
• Granted Patent: US 10,637,918 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1017 based on a round robin mechanism
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1023 based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1031 Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

A high availability and load balanced content delivery system and method. A cloud computing content delivery system is provided including multiple content delivery servers (CDSs) configured to deliver content to multiple client devices. The client devices are configured to maintain a source list identifying the multiple CDSs and a primary CDS. The client devices send requests (e.g., yum requests) to the CDS for the mirror list. The client device then uses the mirror list and sends content requests to a first entry on the mirror list. Each CDS is configured to update the mirror list by applying a load balancing algorithm and provide the mirror list to a client device in the event that one or more CDSs are unavailable.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for managing a plurality of content delivery servers in a cloud environment, comprising:

grouping, by an enterprise appliance, a plurality of content delivery servers in the cloud environment into a cluster;

maintaining a mirror list comprising an initial order of the plurality of content delivery servers in the cluster;

receiving, at a primary content delivery server, a first minor list request from a first subscriber node of the cloud environment, wherein the first subscriber node is configured to comprise a source list identifying the primary content delivery server;

delivering, by the primary content delivery server, the minor list to the first subscriber node; and

updating the mirror list to comprise an updated order of the content delivery servers.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, at the primary content delivery server, a second minor list request from a second subscriber node configured to comprise the source list identifying the primary content delivery server; and

delivering, by the primary content delivery server, the updated mirror list comprising the updated order to the second subscriber node.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein updating the mirror list comprises applying a round-robin rotation to the minor list to produce the updated order.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of content delivery servers maintains a cluster membership list.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the cluster membership list is provided to each of the plurality of content delivery servers by the enterprise appliance.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein an initial entry in the updated order comprises a second content delivery server.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 further comprising:

receiving, by the second content delivery server, an update request from the second subscriber node; and

delivering, by the second content delivery server, one or more update packages associated with the update request to the second subscriber node.

8. A computer-implemented method for updating a subscriber node in a cloud environment, comprising:

maintaining, at the subscriber node of the cloud environment, a source list listing a plurality of content delivery servers, wherein the source list identifies a primary content delivery server;

sending, by the subscriber node, a request for a mirror list to the primary content delivery server;

receiving, by the subscriber node, the mirror list listing a plurality of content delivery servers from the primary content delivery server;

sending, by the subscriber node, an update request to an initial content delivery server listed in the minor list; and

receiving, by the subscriber node, one or more update packages associated with the update request from the initial content delivery server.

9. A computer-implemented method for updating a subscriber node in a cloud environment, comprising:

maintaining a source list listing a plurality of content delivery servers in the cloud environment in a first order identifying a primary content delivery server;

sending a first mirror list request to the primary content delivery server;

determining that the primary content delivery server is unavailable;

sending a second mirror list request to a next content delivery server in the source list; and

receiving from the next content delivery server in the source list;

an updated source list with the primary content delivery server removed, and

an updated minor list with the primary content delivery server removed.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 further comprising engaging in a transaction with a first content delivery server listed in the updated mirror list.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein engaging in the transaction comprises:

sending one or more update requests to the first content delivery server listed in the updated mirror list, and

receiving one or more update packages associated with the one or more update requests from the first content delivery server listed in the updated minor list.

12. A system for load balancing content delivery servers in a cloud environment, comprising:

an enterprise appliance configured to group a plurality of content delivery servers in the cloud environment into a cluster; and

a plurality of content delivery servers communicatively connected to the enterprise appliance and a plurality of subscriber nodes in the cloud environment, each of the plurality of content delivery servers configured to be designated a primary content delivery server configured to;

maintain a first minor list comprising a first order of the plurality of content delivery servers identifying a primary content delivery server,

receive a request for a mirror list from a first client device comprising a source list,

deliver the first mirror list to the first client device,

update the first minor list to a second mirror list comprising a second order of the content delivery servers, and

deliver the updated mirror list to a second client device.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein each of the plurality of content delivery servers are further configured to:

receive one or more content requests from at least one of the plurality of client devices; and

deliver content associated with the one or more content requests to the at least one of the plurality of client devices.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the enterprise appliance server is further configured to:

deliver a cluster membership list to the plurality of content delivery servers; and

send a cluster update to an available portion of the plurality of content delivery servers, the cluster update comprising an updated source list.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to perform operations comprising:

maintaining a mirror list comprising an initial order of a plurality of content delivery servers;

receiving, at a primary content delivery server, a first minor list request from a first subscriber node of the cloud environment, wherein the subscriber node is configured to comprise a source list identifying the primary content delivery server;

delivering, by the primary content delivery server, the minor list to the first subscriber node; and

updating the mirror list to comprise an updated order of the content delivery servers.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving, at the primary content delivery server, a second minor list request from a second subscriber node configured to comprise the source list identifying the primary content delivery server; and

delivering, by the primary content delivery server, the updated mirror list comprising the updated order to the second subscriber node.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein updating the mirror list comprises applying a round-robin rotation to the mirror list to produce the updated order.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein each of the plurality of content delivery servers maintains a cluster membership list.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the cluster membership list is provided to each of the plurality of content delivery servers by an enterprise appliance.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein an initial entry in the updated order comprises a second content delivery server.

21. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 20, further comprising:

receiving, by the second content delivery server, an update request from the second subscriber node; and

delivering, by the second content delivery server, one or more update packages associated with the update request to the second subscriber node.

22. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to perform operations comprising:

maintaining, at a client device, a source list listing a plurality of content delivery servers, wherein the source list identifies a primary content delivery server;

sending, by the client device, a request for a mirror list to the primary content delivery server;

receiving, by the client device, the minor list listing a plurality of content delivery servers from the primary content delivery server;

sending, by the client device, a content request to an initial content delivery server listed in the minor list; and

receiving, by the client device, content associated with the content request from the initial content delivery server.