LOAD BALANCING IN THE INTERNET OF THINGS

• US 20140359131A1
• Filed: 05/28/2014
• Published: 12/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Convida Wireless LLC
• Original Assignee: Convida Wireless LLC
• Inventors: Seed, Dale N., Rahman, Shamim Akbar, Wang, Chonggang
• Granted Patent: US 10,057,173 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1004 Server selection for load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1017 based on a round robin mechanism
• 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 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]

Abstract

Disclosed herein are a variety of devices, methods, and systems for load balancing in the internet of things. Devices and other entities can be grouped together in a load balancing group and traffic for such devices balanced according to load balancing criteria. Groups may be discovered, created, manipulated, and deleted by various entities.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, at an entity in a network of connected entities, a request to create a load balancing group;

creating, at the entity, the load balancing group;

selecting, at the entity, a device from among eligible load balancing group devices;

adding, at the entity, the device to the load balancing group; and

balancing, at the entity, traffic associated with the eligible load balancing group devices based on the load balancing group resource.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising querying a resource directory to determine if the load balancing group exists at the resource directory and receiving a response from the resource directory indicating that the load balancing group does not exist at the resource directory.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising querying a resource directory to determine the eligible load balancing group devices.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising determining whether each of the eligible load balancing group devices is a member of the load balancing group.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein creating the load balancing group comprises sending a request to a resource directory to create the load balancing group.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a request to a resource directory to remove a second device from the load balancing group.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a request to a resource directory to delete the load balancing group.

8. An entity in a network of connected entities, the entity comprising:

a memory comprising instructions; and

a processor that, when executing the instructions, effectuates operations comprising;

receiving a request to create a load balancing group;

creating the load balancing group;

selecting a device from among eligible load balancing group devices;

adding the device to the load balancing group; and

balancing traffic associated with the eligible load balancing group devices based on the load balancing group resource.

9. The entity of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise querying a resource directory to determine if the load balancing group exists at the resource directory and receiving a response from the resource directory indicating that the load balancing group does not exist at the resource directory.

10. The entity of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise querying a resource directory to determine the eligible load balancing group devices.

11. The entity of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise determining whether each of the eligible load balancing group devices is a member of the load balancing group.

12. The entity of claim 8, wherein the operation of creating the load balancing group comprises sending a request to a resource directory to create the load balancing group.

13. The entity of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise sending a request to a resource directory to remove a second device from the load balancing group.

14. The entity of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise sending a request to a resource directory to delete the load balancing group.

15. An Internet of Things (IoT) proxy comprising:

a memory comprising instructions; and

a processor that, when executing the instructions, effectuates operations comprising;

receiving a request to create a load balancing group;

creating the load balancing group;

selecting a device from among eligible load balancing group devices;

adding the device to the load balancing group; and

balancing traffic associated with the eligible load balancing group devices based on the load balancing group resource.

16. The IoT proxy of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise querying a resource directory to determine if the load balancing group exists at the resource directory and receiving a response from the resource directory indicating that the load balancing group does not exist at the resource directory.

17. The IoT proxy of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise querying a resource directory to determine the eligible load balancing group devices.

18. The IoT proxy of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise determining whether each of the eligible load balancing group devices is a member of the load balancing group.

19. The IoT proxy of claim 15, wherein the operation of creating the load balancing group comprises sending a request to a resource directory to create the load balancing group.

20. The IoT proxy of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise sending a request to a resource directory to remove a second device from the load balancing group.