Intelligent switching of client packets among a group of servers
US7937490B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 22, 2008 |
| Grant date | May 3, 2011 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 22, 2028 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L67/10015
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
The content-aware application switch and methods thereof intelligently switch client packets to one server among a group of servers in a server farm. The switch uses Layer 7 or application content parsed from a packet to help select the server and to schedule the transmitting of the packet to the server. This enables refined load-balancing and Quality of-Service control tailored to the application being switched. In another aspect of the invention, a slow-start server selection method assigned an initially boosted server load metric to a server newly added to the group of servers under load balancing. This alleviates the problem of the new server being swamped initially due to a very low load metric compared to that of others. In yet another aspect of the invention, a switching method dependent on Layer 7 content avoids delayed binding in a new TCP session. Layer 7 content is not available during the initial handshaking phase of a new TCP session. The method uses the Layer 7 content from a previous session as an estimate to help select the server and uses a default priority to scheduling the transmitting of the handshaking packets. Updated Layer 7 content available after the handsh…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.