Hierarchical load balancing in a network environment

摘要

An example method for load balancing in a network environment is provided and includes receiving a packet from a first stage load-balancer in a network environment, where the packet is forwarded from the first stage load-balancer to one of a plurality of second stage load-balancers in the network according to a hash based forwarding scheme, and routing the packet from the second stage load-balancer to one of a plurality of servers in the network according to a per-session routing scheme. The per-session routing scheme includes retrieving a session routing state from a distributed hash table in the network. In a specific embodiment, the hash based forwarding scheme includes equal cost multi path routing. The session routing state can include an association between a next hop for the packet and the packet's 5-tuple representing a session to which the packet belongs.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
receiving a packet at one of a plurality of second stage load-balancers in a network, wherein the packet is forwarded from a first stage load-balancer to the second stage load balancer according to a hash based forwarding scheme; and routing the packet, by the second stage load-balancer to one of a plurality of servers in the network according to a per-session routing scheme that comprises, at least, retrieving a session routing state from a distributed hash table (DHT) in the network, wherein the DHT is distributed among the plurality of second stage load-balancers, wherein the session routing states are maintained in the DHT using leases, wherein the session routing state comprises a data structure including a next hop for the packet associated with a session to which the packet belongs.