Patent · US Expired

Distributed network traffic load balancing technique implemented without gateway router

US6742044B1 · kind B1 · utility

94Cited by
45References
76Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 10, 2000
Grant dateMay 25, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 10, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L69/16
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The technique of the present invention provides a solution to the problem of routing or redirecting a given client to a replica or proxy server which has a relatively shortest propagation delay to the client. According to the technique of the present invention, a network device referred to as an intercept server sits in front of a host server, and intercepts packets routed to the host server. When desired, packets which are intercepted by the intercept server are replicated, encapsulated and tunneled to selected client servers in the overlay network. The tunneled packets are received and processed by each of the selected client servers, whereupon each of the selected client servers generates a respective spoofed response to the source device identified in the header of the originally intercepted packet. Further, according to the technique of the present invention, each of the selected client servers transmits its respective spoofed response to the identified source device at substantially the same time. The client server associated with the spoofed response which is first received at the identified source device is considered to have the relatively shortest propagation delay to the…

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