Automatic link establishment between distributed servers through an NBMA network

摘要

The invention relates to distributed computer or server networks and to methods of automatically establishing communication links between individual servers in the network. By taking advantage of the properties of group addresses (anycast addresses) inherent in certain networking technologies, coupled with innovative discovery and hunt protocols the servers in the network all become members of an overlay spanning tree where the tree is comprised of servers as nodes and communication links as edges. Discovery and hunt protocols are implemented to locate peer servers in the network and communication links are set up as required.