Patent · US Expired

Affinity-based router and routing method

US6424992B2 · kind B2 · utility

186Cited by
11References
19Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 8, 1997
Grant dateJul 23, 2002
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 8, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L67/1027
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An affinity-based router and method for routing and load balancing in an encapsulated cluster of server nodes is disclosed. The system consists of a multi-node server, wherein any of the server nodes can handle a client request, but wherein clients have affinity to one or more of the server nodes that are preferred to handle a client request. Such affinity is due to state at the servers either due to previous routing requests, or data affinity at the server. At the multi-node server, a node may be designated as a TCP router. The address of the TCP router is given out to clients, and client requests are sent thereto. The TCP router selects one of the nodes in the multi-node server to process the client request, and routes the request to this server; in addition, the TCP router maintains affinity tables, containing affinity records, indicating which node a client was routed to. In processing the client request, the server nodes may determine that another node is better suited to handle the client request, and may reset the corresponding TCP router affinity table entry. The server nodes may also create, modify or delete affinity records in the TCP router affinity table. Subsequent req…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.