Method and apparatus for load balancing in network based telephony application

摘要

Techniques are disclosed for load balancing in networks such as those networks handling telephony applications. By way of example, such techniques direct requests associated with calls to servers in a system comprised of a network routing calls between a plurality of callers and at least one receiver wherein a load balancer sends requests associated with calls to a plurality of servers as follows. A request associated with a call, a caller, or a receiver is received, depending on the particular load balancing technique. A server is selected to receive the request. A subsequent request is received. A determination is made whether or not the subsequent request is associated with the call, the caller, or the receiver, depending on the particular load balancing technique. The subsequent request is sent to the server based on determining that the subsequent request is associated with the call, the caller, or the receiver, again depending on the particular load balancing technique.

主权项

1. In a system comprised of a network routing calls between at least one caller and at least one receiver wherein a load balancer sends requests associated with calls to servers, a method for directing requests associated with calls to said servers, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving a request associated with a call; estimating an amount of work that each of a plurality of servers has left to do for processing calls currently assigned to the plurality of servers, wherein a call may be assigned to a single server, wherein said amount of work that a given server of the plurality of servers has left to do is estimated based on a number of requests assigned to the given server, wherein at least one request is weighted by a relative overhead associated with a request type of the at least one request, wherein the requests correspond to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and a higher overhead is associated with INVITE requests than with BYE requests, and wherein an INVITE request is associated with an overhead in a range of 1.5 to 2.0 times the overhead of a BYE request; selecting a server of the plurality of servers to receive and process the request associated with said call based on the estimated amount of work that the selected server has left to do, wherein selecting a server of the plurality of servers to receive and process the request associated with said call comprises selecting a server of the plurality of servers with an estimated least amount of work left to do; receiving a subsequent request; determining whether or not the subsequent request is another request associated with said call; and sending the subsequent request to said selected server based on determining that the subsequent request is another request associated with said call.