Patent ID: 9749241
Date: 2017-08-29
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A network element, comprising: a plurality of servers; an ingress switch having: an egress switch in communication with the plurality of servers using dedicated lines, the egress switch having: one or more physical ports, a second packet-forwarding table, and a second API for modifying how packets are forwarded through the egress switch, each port of the one or more physical ports of the egress switch being in communication with an external network element, the second packet-forwarding table being configured to distribute packet-traffic arriving from the plurality of servers across the physical ports of the egress switch; a communication link between ingress switch and the egress switch over which one of the ingress and egress switches can change how the packets are forwarded in the other of the ingress and egress switches through the API of that other switch; wherein at least one of the group consisting of the ingress switch, a server of the plurality of servers, and an external management agent receives the running record of distribution of received packet-traffic to determine if there is an undesirable imbalance among the plurality of servers, to estimate a load on each server, and to identify servers that are oversubscribed, and use the API to dynamically cause the ingress switch to modify packet-traffic distribution pattern across the plurality of servers by redirecting packets originally intended for the oversubscribed servers to a server that is not oversubscribed.